Preamble

The House met at half-past Nine o'clock

PRAYERS

[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]

Westminster City Council

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Jamieson.]

Mr. Andrew Dismore: I am grateful for this opportunity to raise the issues of local government probity illustrated by the scandals of Westminster city council. The saga stretches back over 12 years and touches every Westminster resident. As Westminster Labour councillors, my hon. Friends the Members for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) and for The Wrekin (Mr. Bradley) and I experienced the scandal directly and fought against it. It is a scandal of such spectacular scale that it rivals any work of political fiction—except that it is true.
I shall start by reminding the House of some of the key findings of the High Court on 19 December 1997. It found that
Dame Shirley Porter and Councillor Weeks lied to the court as they had lied to the Auditor".
That was
because they had the ulterior purpose of altering the electorate".
It further found that
Targeting marginal wards was central to her political objectives
and that
Their purpose throughout was to achieve unlawful electoral advantage. Knowledge of the unlawfulness and deliberate dressing-up both inevitably point to wilful misconduct.
In so finding, the High Court surcharged Dame Shirley Porter and Councillor Weeks £27 million—the highest amount in local government history—and disqualified them from holding office. Language of such outstanding condemnation is more appropriate to the Old Bailey than to the High Court, but it shows how seriously the court viewed what has been described as the greatest act of corruption in local government history.
In the May 1986 council elections, Labour romped home in 12 marginal seats and came within 108 votes of winning the council. Lady Porter's greatest nightmare was coming true. "Imagine socialists running Buckingham palace!" she exclaimed. From that paranoia was hatched the long dark shadow of the Tory conspiracy that was to subvert democracy in the city of Westminster. From then on, elections were to be fought on a different basis.
As the few remaining decent Tories stood by, officers were bullied and intimidated and city hall was politicised. As Burke pointed out,
It is necessary only for the good man to do nothing for evil to triumph.

Never was a saying more appropriate than in Westminster council during the Porter years.
As the auditor said in his report on the infamous sale of the cemeteries for 15p, there was "a climate of fear" in city hall. Time and again, officers who refused to toe the line were sidelined, retired or sacked. Some 48 senior officers had left by 1988. The exodus culminated in the departure of the chief executive, Rodney Brooke, a highly thought of local government officer, who, after years of humiliation doing little more than the equivalent of counting paper clips, was given a £1 million pay-off.
The High Court exposed what it called
The contemptuous state of mind towards officers and their views
and
The attitude of the majority party to the Westminster council officers, for whom it could not have been pleasant working at this time … such pressures may well have had an insidious effect on the officers, making them reluctant to speak out robustly.
The politicisation of city hall was summarised in a nutshell by a margin note written by solicitor Matthew Ives on one of the many secret documents. He wrote:
This paper should not have been written by an officer. Much more subtle approach required. This paper shows officers working for a Tory victory.
City hall was infiltrated by a whole dramatis personae of shady right-wing characters advising Lady Porter. One became known throughout city hall as "the man with no name" and "the thing in the goods lift", because of his habit of sneaking in by the tradesman's entrance. We now know that he was Roger Rosewall, erstwhile Socialist Workers party activist, now Porter apologist and Daily Mail leader writer.
Property speculator Richard Loftus was also part of the clandestine city hall plot. While he paid for the Tories' poll tax campaign, he was also seeking permission for highly controversial developments in the west end, involving the partial demolition of some of the finest Georgian buildings in central London. He gained those permissions, leading to the destruction of a large part of London's architectural heritage. We believe that those permissions were obtained only because of his Tory party connections.
Not only was political campaigning conducted on the rates, but, from other sources, donations were illegally channelled through a bogus charity, the Foundation for Business Responsibility, which was run by Michael Ivens, a right-wing extremist and husband of Tory councillor Katy Ivens. There was a panoply of espionage, with Porter telling her associates to
swallow documents in good spy fashion.
Instructions were given to officers to book meeting rooms for Tories, using undercover names. The Toffler society was a favourite alias—much to the disapproval of the American right winger, Mr. Toffler. There was a complete dispensation with the normal democratic process. Decisions were taken not in committee but by a secret chairmen's group, whose minutes have still not been fully published. The reports that went to committee were misleading and incomplete.
However, activities went far beyond that. A dirty tricks squad was set up to discredit residents' groups that opposed Tory policies. Instructions were given to spy on Labour councillors' backgrounds in efforts to dig up dirt


on us—unsuccessfully, I am pleased to say. Orders were carried out to lie to us, and to delay and obfuscate replies to Labour councillors' letters. As the High Court found, Mr. England, the director of housing, helped Phillips, the managing director,
to provide the minority party with wholly misleading answers to what appeared to us to be understandable and wholly proper questions.
Against that background, it is all too clear how the corruption of Westminster occurred.
In her interview with the auditor, disaffected Tory councillor, Patricia Kirwan, said that soon after the 1986 elections,
one idea which came forward, following a meeting between Lady Porter and the Leader of Wandsworth Council"—
who is now the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir P. Beresford)—
was to sell all Council owned properties in key (marginal) wards as it was thought that owner occupiers were more likely to vote Conservative than Council tenants.
By as early as June 1986, officers were recording that the Tories' objectives included
Social engineering including housing",
and
Economic justification for G-mander on housing.
From those roots developed the policy that was euphemistically called, "Building Stable Communities", which was anything but that. It was the smokescreen for gerrymandering.
The sale of council homes in the eight key marginal wards for the Conservative party's electoral advantage is now well-documented and recorded fact. The homes-for-votes scandal has left thousands of victims throughout Westminster, whose problems will be described by my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North, should she catch your eye, Madam Speaker.
"Building Stable Communities" went way beyond homes for votes, affecting every council department, every evolving policy—even affecting electoral registration, which was made virtually impossible for those living in temporary accommodation and much more difficult for council estate tenants in marginal wards. Planning policy was fixed, discriminating against social housing and in favour of owner-occupation. Planning permission for owner-occupied housing in marginal wards was fast-tracked to meet the Tory voter targets. There was a plethora of environmental schemes—from fixing broken pavements to street cleaning, and even hanging flower baskets from lampposts—but they all had one key aim: to divert resources to favour marginal wards. A special task force, the ZIP squad, was set up to see it through.
Press and public relations activities were politicised, with special brochures, leaflets and newsletters for marginal wards. Everything was subject to an overarching policy of regular monitoring, with monthly reports supervised by Councillor Weeks and submitted to the chairmen's group.

Mr. Mike Gapes: Is my hon. Friend aware that, when the scandal developed, Westminster council employed somebody to act as a consultant to try

to help it with its problems? That man was Geoff Price, who had retired as the chief executive of the London borough of Redbridge in 1993. It subsequently came out that Mr. Price was involved in another local government scandal, in my borough of Redbridge. As chief executive, he and the director of finance, Maurice Tilley, gave enhanced pension payments to 103 council employees, who were predominantly male, white and in the central secretariats of the council. Mr. Price enhanced his own pension by £63,000 in the two years before payments were stopped by the minority Labour administration, which was elected in 1994 and dealt with the scandal created by the Tories while they controlled my borough. Is not it interesting that there is a connection between the Tories in Westminster and the former Tory chief executive of Redbridge council?

Mr. Dismore: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. Mr. Price was brought in to investigate another aspect of the scandal, which I shall be mentioning shortly. I am pleased to say that, once we brought the matter to the council's attention, he was sacked from the inquiry—although I regret to say that he did not choose to waive his fee.
It was not all plain sailing for Lady Porter. The poll tax threatened to wipe out all her work, until it was conveniently fiddled by central Government to ensure that the predicted poll tax of more than £400 was halved to £195. More significantly, there was the problem of major works bills, which Mr. Price was brought in at a much later date to investigate. Many of those who bought gerrymandered flats were potentially liable for bills of tens of thousands of pounds, so under the instruction of Councillor Hartley, the chairman of the housing committee, no major works bills were sent out at all between 1987 and 1991, straddling the 1990 elections. The council is still trying to sort out the loss of millions of pounds that was left behind.
Those are just some examples of how all Westminster council's resources were diverted to one overriding aim: to win the council for the Tories in 1990, at whatever cost—a cost that we estimate overall to be more than £100 million. The issues that I have described are the subject of further complaints to the auditor.
It is of equal concern that not only did the gerrymandering work for the 1990 elections, but the Tories so nearly got clean away with it. If it had not been for Porter and Weeks's obsession with recording and monitoring progress in writing; if it had not been for the persistence of the objectors; if it had not been for the talents of John Ware of "Panorama", who investigated the issue; if it had not been for the handful of Tories who spilled the beans, such as Patricia Kirwan; and above all, if it had not been for the courageous tenacity of John Magill, the district auditor, the truth might never have come to light.

Dr. Julian Lewis: I note the hon. Gentleman's tribute to the courage and tenacity of the district auditor. Does that mean that he approves of the way in which the district auditor spun out his investigation for a period longer than the duration of the second world war, held a press conference halfway through the investigation to announce the guilt of the parties, and indicted 10 people, of whom all but two have


either been cleared or—in one case—have committed suicide? Does he believe that that was a model of auditing, and if so, why was it condemned by the court?

Mr. Dismore: The hon. Gentleman should read the court judgment more thoroughly, because it made it absolutely clear that there was no reason to impeach the auditor's investigation. The auditor made it clear in his provisional report that the investigation had taken so long because of the obstruction of the Conservative party, through shredding documents and avoiding interviews. I shall deal with that shortly.
In the light of the court judgment, the Audit Commission must be encouraged to confirm that Mr. Magill is the right person to proceed with the outstanding inquiries, which must be completed as soon as possible.
There are, however, wider lessons to be learnt, many of which have been picked up by the Nolan report into local government. I have one concern about the Nolan report. Recommendation 15 proposes standards committees in each local authority. It is inevitable that the majority party of the council would have a majority on such a committee.
Had the misconduct of Lady Porter been subject to the scrutiny of such a standards committee during the years of her reign on Westminster council, I have little doubt that the allegation of wrongdoing would have been rejected, dismissed and swept under the carpet, thus not achieving the necessary objective examination that Nolan expects. However, I welcome the Nolan recommendation for a new criminal offence of misuse of public office, stretching beyond just financial loss to cover other areas of serious misconduct.
If I am asked one question above all others, it is, "When is Lady Porter going to gaol?" That is what people expect, and it is the one thing under the present system that cannot happen. We also need stronger powers of investigation for the auditor, and an offence of obstructing the auditor. As I said, in Mr. Magill's interim report, we read of how documents were destroyed and interviews avoided. Mr. Magill even had to carry out a dawn raid in his boiler suit to go through old archives hidden in the basement of city hall, because he was so afraid that they would end up in the shredder if he gave advance notice of his visit.
We need protection for whistleblowers. The private Member's Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), which I understand the Government support, is a good start. We need openness in the disclosure of information and documentation.
A major difficulty with the present system is the requirement for an objector to prove his or her case. That is an extremely expensive business, especially for a private citizen. It is not fair to put citizens in such a position when attempting to enforce rights on behalf of the community. We must consider ways of giving them public support. We need to find ways in which to compensate the victims of such outrageous wrongdoing.
So far, there has been no word of condemnation by the Tory party of Westminster council, Dame Shirley Porter or any of her co-conspirators. So far, no action has been taken to recover the money from Dame Shirley. The council has not even sent her a bill.
At the time of Mr. Magill's report—

Mr. Dennis Skinner: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind the fact that the Tory silence on that matter

is in sharp contrast to what happened in 1972–74, when 11 Clay Cross councillors decided not to put up the rents in accordance with the edict by Ted Heath—or should I call him the former Tory Prime Minister—on the Housing Finance Act 1972?
The Tories were baying for blood then. Those councillors were 11 principled people. They were acting not in a covert fashion but openly, saying that they were contesting the law. Yet every day in the House the Tories demanded that heads should roll.
As a result, my brothers and their colleagues were, in some cases, made bankrupt. They had their cars towed away and their holiday money taken by the sequestrator, and they were kicked out of office for 14 years by the Tories voting in the House to ensure that the sanctions were applied.
The councillors were honourable people; they were not putting money in their own pockets, yet they were hounded by the Tory Government. Does not that stand in sharp contrast to the silence from the Tories now about the £27 million fraud by Lady Porter, who should be brought to book immediately?

Mr. Dismore: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. He may be interested to know that I asked the Library to research the previous history of surcharge, and found that if all the surcharges previously made were added together and multiplied by 100, only then would the sum start to approach £27 million. I can also inform my hon. Friend that one of the people found guilty in the High Court, Councillor David Weeks, is still sitting as a Conservative councillor in Westminster.

Mr. Nick St. Aubyn: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Dismore: I have nearly finished now. No doubt the hon. Gentleman will speak later.
At the time of Mr. Magill's report, I suggested that the council should apply to the court to freeze Lady Porter's assets. That did not happen, and we now hear that Porter has transferred most of her money abroad, mainly to Israel and Florida. To quote forensic accountants KPMG, she has been "well advised". The council, in consultation with the auditor, must now take urgent steps to recover the missing millions.
Finally, a suggestion put forward by the Evening Standard editorial on the High Court judgment day expresses a desire shared by the 136 hon. Members who have so far signed early-day motion 630. Dame Shirley Porter received her DBE for services to local government. That award, we now know, was obtained under false pretences. She should be stripped of her title as a lesson to all would-be corrupt gerrymanderers. The Conservative party leadership must now bite the bullet, dissociate themselves from Dame Shirley and the others, condemn what they have done and expel them from the party.

Mr. Nick St. Aubyn: I begin by declaring an interest as a resident of Westminster when I work at the House. I have a home near here and I currently have an application with Westminster council to vary an existing valid planning consent. I have been advised by the officer concerned that the variation is non-controversial.
I also have a wider interest in speaking in the debate, because from 1982 to 1986 I was an elected member of Westminster council. When Dame Shirley Porter first stood for the leadership of the council, I was one of those who voted against her. I opposed her policy on the technology committee, of which I was a member, and as I had been so vociferous in my opposition, I was somewhat surprised when she asked me to become chairman of that committee. In all fairness, I must say that she was always prepared to listen to my advice, although it was not always the advice that she wanted to hear.
I make it clear that I have nothing to hide in connection with my period as a Westminster councillor, and I have nothing to gain by speaking in the debate. I simply hope to give a sense of balance and fairness to the conduct and proceedings of the House.
The hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) mentioned the 1986 election. I was fortunate enough to be elected in 1982, beating the sitting Labour councillor with the largest swing in any London seat, and in 1986 I lost that seat only after seven recounts. In case anyone should think that an avaricious attitude towards getting votes out is confined to one side of the House, or the council, I can tell hon. Members that we later discovered a number of cases in which people who had voted had clearly not been resident in my ward for many years. That number was more than the number of votes by which I lost.
However, we were not bad losers. We took it on the chin and went on to better things. But the House has already listened to a bad loser this morning, because whatever the hon. Member for Hendon may say about the conduct of Westminster council, he failed time and again to win control of it. How galling it must have been for him, as he heard of the fall of so many citadels of Conservative power in London and elsewhere, that he and his colleagues could not gain the glittering prize that he so clearly described.

Mr. Dismore: You fixed the elections.

Mr. St. Aubyn: There was something a little demeaning in the way in which the hon. Gentleman approached his subject this morning, because his speech was so one-sided. The judge was certainly forthright in his condemnation of Lady Porter and Councillor Weeks. It is not my job to defend them, but the judge also had harsh words to bestow all round.
The judgment reads as follows:
in our judgment, the press conference which took place"—
that is, the press conference held by the auditor—
was ill-conceived and unfortunately executed. It would have been sufficient for a press statement to have been issued, preferably by the auditor's solicitor … Instead, a televised announcement was arranged at which the auditor himself appeared and, although he said that his views were provisional, he expressed them in florid language … There was a further feature of the events which should have had no place in the middle of quasi-judicial inquiry. A stack of ring binders on the desk at which the auditor sat, bearing the name of his firm for the benefit of the cameras was, ostensibly, under the protection of a security guard: unless it was being implied that the persons under investigation might wish to steal the documents, it is not clear what was the purpose of this posturing.

That was the judgment of those who sat in the hearing from which the hon. Gentleman so selectively quoted.
There was more. Yes, it was found that the investigation was lied to by two of those who appeared before it, but, in the interests of a balanced judgment by the House, it is fair to record what the judges said in their findings as well. They refer to
the huge lapse of time—10 or 11 years—since the crucial events, and … the period of nearly 4 years since the auditor announced his provisional findings",
and remark:
In such circumstances, it would be unsurprising if any of the appellants, however innocent of wrong-doing, had claimed any close relationship with … a policy which … was both unlawful … and might give rise to wilful misconduct.

Mr. Jim Fitzpatrick: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that the judgment also contains the following passage?
In the public hearing which followed the provisional findings there was, as it seems to us, ample and fair opportunity given for the appellants to make their case to the auditor. Although each chose not to give evidence, each made representations, DSP, E and P by counsel. Numerous contemporaneous documents chart the course of events. Accordingly, we are not persuaded that the auditor's final conclusions can be impeached on the grounds of unfairness. In any event, we are satisfied that the hearing which has taken place before this court has cured any possible unfairness to the appellants which could have arisen from the conduct of the auditor. Each has had the opportunity, after mature consideration of the objectors' complaints, the relevant documents and the auditor's findings, to put his or her case fully in evidence and submission by experienced counsel.

Mr. St. Aubyn: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reminding the House, at some length, that the judges admitted the possibility of a need to cure mistakes and deficiencies in the process to which the accused had been subjected.
I shall quote one more time from the judgment. It says that in such cases one should
select and concentrate on the points of real significance and … discard the rest as dross".
I suggest that we do the same with the speech by the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Bradley). [Interruption.] No one would dispute the fact—

Mr. Peter Bradley: rose—

Mr. St. Aubyn: No, I have given way several times already.

Mr. Bradley: The hon. Gentleman just said that I had made a speech. I know that I speak quickly—and with great depth and breadth—but I have not yet uttered a syllable. If the hon. Gentleman can tell me what I am going to say when I do, he will save us all a good deal of time.

Mr. St. Aubyn: I apologise unreservedly to the hon. Gentleman. I was referring to the hon. Member for Hendon.
No one would dispute the fact that the former leader of Westminster council was wilful. Many politicians are wilful. The issue is one of misconduct, however, and I think that we should take a balanced view. One of the findings of the judgment from which we have all quoted


was that the "quality of life" programme that was at the heart of the council's policy was, in itself, in no way improper. Yes, misconduct was found to have taken place, but it took place in the wider context of a policy that was validated time and again by Westminster's electors.
When I was a Westminster councillor, we had a real problem because of the large number of homeless people who had little connection with the borough, but who sought housing in it, often at the expense of people—and their children—who had lived there for many years and were also trying to get a foot on the expensive housing ladder.
We had an idea. We had some land in our land bank in the early 1980s. Instead of developing it for council housing, we transferred it, at no cost—all this was done entirely legitimately—to a builder, who built homes on it and sold them, at a reduced price, to the people on our housing list. That was known as the starter homes project, and it was so successful in creating new housing for those in genuine need that it was adopted throughout the country. There is clearly justification for a policy that gives preference to the sons and daughters of those who live in the area of a council—in this instance, Westminster—if that policy can be legitimised, even if it sometimes means not meeting the competing needs of homeless people.
No one should deny the seriousness of homelessness, and its seriousness in a city centre; but we should not ignore the effects on others of trying to cope with the problem. Rarely do I hold a surgery in my Guildford constituency at which people do not tell me of the problems that they experience with new neighbours on their housing estates—previously homeless people who are becoming a disruptive influence.

Mr. Bradley: The hon. Gentleman has told us that his tenure on Westminster council was between 1982 and 1986, before the events that we are discussing took place. I wonder whether his speech—interesting though it is—is relevant to the debate.
May I just point out that it was precisely the rights of sons and daughters in Westminster, and in long-established communities, that were denied and overturned by the hon. Gentleman's former colleagues on the council? His speech is very conceptual, and has nothing to do with the matter in hand.

Mr. St. Aubyn: The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong. The debate is about probity. In setting priorities for local government, we go to the heart of the matter: the needs of all local residents should be taken into account. There were sound principles behind some of the policies that were pursued by the council at that time, and are still being pursued today. That, above all, is why the council continues to enjoy the support of local residents in local elections.
As I said, the debate is about probity. It would have helped the speech of the hon. Member for Hendon if he had shown at least a semblance of balance when comparing the conduct of Westminster council with that of other councils. It would have helped if he had made some comment on one council's debt of £50 million, and the auditors' statement that its financial position
has left it ripe for fraud and corruption and urgent action must be taken.

It would have been right for him to mention the problems to which I refer—those of Islington council. Mr. Elliott, the district auditor,
warned that widespread use of petty cash and overtime put it at risk of fraud.
His latest damning report on Islington council highlights soaring rent arrears of more than £20 million, council tax arrears of more than £23 million, £5 million in overtime payments and £4 million in uncollected parking fines.
There are real problems on Islington council. It would be wrong to suppose that the problem of corruption is confined to one council in London or, indeed, in the country as a whole. We heard recently of the problems of Glasgow council. A senior Labour member of the council spoke of trips for votes, and even the promise of jobs for votes. Above all, we have heard of cases of personal gain on Labour councils. I must tell the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), who intervened earlier, that in the course of the 11-year inquiry into Westminster council, I have seen no evidence that those who now stand accused of misconduct gained any personal financial advantage from their actions. I am not here to defend them, but, to be fair to them, their case is still subject to appeal. I challenge Labour Members to come up with any such evidence.
In the cases of Glasgow, Islington and—as we read recently in The Herald—Paisley, there is more than a suspicion that people obtained such personal gain. It is to the shame of the hon. Member for Hendon that he was not prepared to balance his comments about Westminster council's past with the present of Labour councils up and down the country.

Mr. David Heath: I am fascinated by what the hon. Gentleman is saying. If he believes that probity in local government is important—and I hope that every hon. Member agrees that it is—and if he considers the audit process important, will he not take this opportunity to commend Mr. Magill for the difficult work that he did over many years and in the face of many obstructions? I know about that, having been involved in the process myself. Will not the hon. Gentleman commend that work and that audit process, rather than trying to exonerate those who have been found guilty?

Mr. St. Aubyn: I am not here to exonerate anyone. That is for the courts to do, and, indeed, what they have done in the case of all but two of those accused by Mr. Magill. In the light of their findings, it is hard to give an unqualified endorsement of Mr. Magill's actions. He certainly received no such endorsement from the three judges who examined the case.
We must now look to the future. We must consider how we can ensure probity in councils such as Glasgow, Islington and Paisley, and in other parts of the country. Such councils should adopt a new code of practice. They should read what Nolan has to say, and take account of his suggestion that they should emphasise the qualities of selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and, above all, leadership that should characterise a code of conduct for every council in the country. I commend the pioneering work of the one council that has already adopted such a code: I refer, of course, to Westminster council.
I am proud of my time as a Westminster councillor. I know that my father-in-law, Councillor Brook, was proud of his time as a Westminster councillor, and I know that my wife's grandfather, Councillor Marshall, was proud of his time as a Westminster councillor. It is an outstanding council with an excellent record. That is why it has been given the endorsement of the local electorate time and again.
The hon. Member for Hendon failed in his attempt, because he was seen to be demeaning not only the actions of the few but the interests and the wider aspirations of the many. The people of Westminster will not forget the fact that, when he came back to Westminster, to the House, to take advantage of his privileged position to slag off most of those who live in Westminster in one way or another, by imputation, for not voting for him, he again let the side down.
Hon. Members should try to be more objective and fair in their analysis of a problem that stretches across the country.

Ms Karen Buck: The hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) mentioned balance. The critical fact is that the Labour party acts when there is wrongdoing or substantial allegations: we suspend the members under investigation. We have not hesitated to condemn and criticise those who are found guilty. The difference is that Conservative Members have not uttered one word of condemnation or criticism of the behaviour of Dame Shirley Porter and her colleagues, who have been found guilty by the courts. How dare Conservative Members talk about balance, when they have not begun to address the issue?
Dame Shirley Porter is guilty of the worst offence possible for someone in public office—betraying the very people whom it was her duty to serve. Housing is one of local government's most important responsibilities, and for it to be abused is morally and politically squalid.
Those are not my words, but those of the London Evening Standard on 9 May 1997, following the publication of the district auditor's final report. They are important words, because they demonstrate the fact that the wider world understood the nature of the breach of probity in local government that occurred in Westminster.
Sadly, some of the Westminster Conservatives' apologists, from some of whom we have heard this morning, have done their best to promote what happened as a victimless crime, saying that it may have been arrogance or wrongheadedness but that no one got hurt and, in any case, everyone does it. In fact, it was the single greatest act of electoral corruption in British political history, and thousands of ordinary people suffered and continue to suffer.
The council tax payers of Westminster have lost £27 million, regardless of whether that money has gone into someone's pocket, which is not in dispute. This spring alone, the council will cut £500,000 from the classroom budget for our schools. Over the years since the investigations began, millions of pounds have been removed from the budgets of the social services and education departments, hitting services for the elderly and the chronically sick and disabled.
That £27 million is worth £130 a year on everyone's council tax, and the interest forgone alone is worth £30. The absolute and overriding priority, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) said, must be the return of the money. The council must seek to have the money paid into court, pending an appeal, and work with the district auditor to pursue what is rightfully due to the people of Westminster.
Where did the money go? It went on capital grants to induce tenants to vacate council buildings and to purchase non-council property. No doubt that was a success in some cases, but the inducement contributed to the 1,000 repossessions a week that were happening at the height of the housing crisis in the early 1990s.
Millions of pounds were spent on keeping buildings empty, with expenses ranging from security and the Sitex doors that went up on properties throughout the borough to the cost of rent forgone. The largest expense was the additional cost of homelessness, condemning hundreds, if not thousands, to the misery of bed-and-breakfast accommodation.
In March 1988, 9,000 properties were included in the designated list and, by March 1989, 702 dwellings had been set aside for sale. One of the most appalling aspects of the story is the fact that, when those properties had been set aside, they were allowed to remain empty for long periods. The total number of weeks empty in the period investigated by Mr. Magill was 27,567.
Think of what that meant to families in bed and breakfast, and indeed for sons and daughters—the very people of whom the hon. Member for Guildford spoke earlier—who were trapped in grossly overcrowded accommodation in their home borough while a metal door was fixed to the neighbouring property, which was being held for sale.

Mr. St. Aubyn: Does the hon. Lady not realise that the sons and daughters to whom we have referred would not have been entitled to enter those homes, and that others, who were unintentionally homeless, would jump to the top of the queue and pre-empt them? That goes to the heart of current housing policy in many councils.

Ms Buck: I disagree. The issue is entirely one of housing priority. Permanent accommodation was allocated on the basis of housing priority, whether for homeless people or for Westminster residents of long standing in chronic housing need, perhaps because of statutory overcrowding. It is also a fundamental mistake to assume that homelessness is a problem which is entirely external to the host borough. Throughout the relevant period, a substantial proportion, if not the majority, of those accepted as homeless had connections with the borough of Westminster.
In the aftermath of the period of frenzied selling occasioned by the designated sales programme, the number of homeless households rose to 871. It would be nice to be able to say that homeless families and people in housing need were simply the forgotten casualties of the episode. In fact, it would be closer to the truth to say that they were treated as the enemy. Notes from the chairman's group of September 1986 contain instructions to be
mean and nasty to the homeless
and to


determine if more can be exported".

Mr. Gapes: On the subject of exporting, is my hon. Friend aware that one of the boroughs to which homeless families from Westminster were exported was Redbridge, where Peabody built a new housing estate in the early 1990s? For example, people with young children were forced to move to a borough many miles away, on the other side of London, with which they had no connections whatever. Many of them were single parents, refugees or people with medical or other problems, who needed to be close to the area that they knew, with the facilities that they had made use of, yet they were moved to my borough, which lacked the facilities, in the schools and other areas of demand from local people, to cope with the influx.

Ms Buck: I absolutely agree. A great deal of human misery was caused. There is no doubt that out-of-borough housing developments can be negotiated to everyone's benefit, but in the history of the gerrymandering scandal there was an aggressive policy of exporting homeless families without the appropriate negotiation with the boroughs on which they were dumped.
Other enemies of the council included the tenant-led groups seeking to take control of their estate in the Harrow road area, ironically making use of the Conservatives' tenants' choice legislation. As the Conservatives needed to marginalise Westminster's homeless into wards that they were unlikely to win, any campaign that would reduce access to the relevant stock was absolutely unacceptable; so there was a sustained smear campaign against those residents.
Against that background, the council moved homeless families into 200 homes in appalling condition in two tower blocks that had been intended for emptying and asbestos removal on the estate that the tenants sought to take over. The original decision was reversed, and 100 families passed through those asbestos-ridden flats. I hope that we may hear more about that later.
Along with council tax payers and those in housing need, the third group of victims was the leaseholders—pawns in the Conservative party game. There was an aggressive home selling campaign, and a lack of real information about what leaseholders' liabilities would be. Many people were trapped in flats that were unmortgageable and unsellable. The building societies red lined some of the designated estates and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon said earlier, the residents were subject to huge unforeseen service charges and major works bills. That is despite the fact that senior Conservatives had seen officers' warnings prior to the sales programme about the dangers on those estates, especially on the Lisson Green estate.
Leaseholders form one of the largest constituency groups coming to my surgeries with cases of hardship. For example, an 80-year-old woman has been presented with bills dating back to 1990. A disabled man in his 50s has had his home repossessed because he was completely unable to maintain payments on the service charges. Young adults—the very people mentioned earlier by the hon. Member for Guildford—whose parents are long-standing Westminster residents and who bought flats have had them repossessed because they were unable to pay service charges and major works bills. They have been left completely homeless. I welcome the fact that the

new Government have sympathy for the predicament of those leaseholders and will consider specific schemes to help them.
The homes for votes scheme included ways to make risky home ownership more attractive, through what was called the abatement scheme. That scheme was later found to be ultra vires and had to be withdrawn. It was an intrinsic part of the gerrymandering programme. The council's internal auditors showed that counsel's advice that a general scheme to waive service charges should not be applied was ignored. Some Maida Vale lessees saw bills rocket from £300 to, in some cases, £5,000, following the withdrawal of the abatement scheme. The whole gerrymandering saga was compounded by administrative and management failures, but it was driven by a hidden political agenda. The delays in billing for political reasons have added to the chronic uncertainty that has destroyed people's lives. The internal audit report on the leaseholder scandal in 1995 found that no accurate bills had been sent out for seven years and £20 million worth of work had not been charged for.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon referred to the campaign against the auditor John Magill, who has endured and, as is clear from today's debate, is still enduring, a campaign of vilification against him. He was charged with bias, his office was picketed and suggestions were made that his investigation was motivated by personal gain. That campaign was not carried out only by Dame Shirley's supporters, but involved the use of council resources, with publicly funded efforts to prove that Magill was responsible for, for example, the council's failure to collect service charges. The district auditor scheme has weaknesses—that is why it is being reviewed. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) pointed out earlier, mention is never made of the weaknesses of the auditor scheme when Labour councils are in the firing line. In any case, the High Court judgment exonerated Mr. Magill from the fundamental charge of unfairness.
Conservative Members have drawn attention to the length of the investigation. Some of my hon. Friends and I, when we were members of Westminster council, often sought additional resources for the district auditor's office to expedite completion of the inquiry. Time and again, we were blocked by Westminster council and, no doubt, by the then Government who had no willingness whatever to see Mr. Magill complete his investigations. Therefore, it is complete nonsense to blame Mr. Magill alone for the length of the investigation.

Dr. Julian Lewis: The hon. Lady mentioned the length of the investigation. For the sake of the record, I wish to emphasise that it took seven years. Has any comparable time ever been taken by an auditor in an investigation of the wrongdoing of a Labour council?

Mr. Dismore: There has been no comparable wrongdoing.

Ms Buck: As my hon. Friend says, there has never needed to be an investigation on a comparable scale into such electoral wrongdoing. As I have said, we asked time and again for additional resources for the auditor's office to bring about a speedy completion of the investigation. The length of the inquiry was not helped by the fact that documents were shredded and deliberate attempts were made to undermine, block and delay the process.
Key movers of the policy remain in place and, in some cases, in important positions on Westminster council. David Weeks, one of those found guilty by the High Court and erstwhile deputy to Dame Shirley and leader of the council in his own right, continues to sit as a councillor. He may even seek to be re-elected in this year's local elections. He has not been suspended by the Conservative party. Why not? After all, he has been found guilty in the High Court. He has not been condemned by the Conservatives and he has not had the decency or good taste to resign his seat.
Councillor Alex Segal, who was not on the final list of those investigated, remains as the chair of social services and as chief whip. He produced a paper, in January 1987, that drew attention to the likelihood that home owners would be more likely to vote Conservative. It stated:
The short term objective must be to target marginal wards and redress the imbalance of tenure.
The High Court judgment states:
After the production of the Segal paper, the direction of the designated sales policy was clearly targeted at marginal wards.
Councillor Segal was also part of the chairmen's group involved in deciding to locate tenants in the asbestos-ridden tower blocks. The inquiry into that decision stated:
No one involved in the debate can be excused for not insisting on a thorough evaluation of the tower blocks.
Angela Killick, the former chair of social services, has said that Alex Segal was
the driving force behind the policy … part of the clique with Porter and Legg.
In a story worthy of Richard Littlejohn's "You couldn't make it up" column, Alex Segal and Councillor Miles Young have even sought public money to offset their costs in a claim for immunity.
Senior Conservatives have sought to create an image of themselves as victims who have been wrongly accused, harmed and persecuted. They are not the victims: the victims are the residents of the City of Westminster, especially the thousands of vulnerable homeless, those in housing need and the leaseholders who await redress. We await an apology from the Conservative party and its condemnation of those involved. Above all, we await the money.

Mr. Paul Burstow: Before I start, I wish to offer my apologies to the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) for not being in my place at the beginning of his remarks, although I managed to hear most of them. I also apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for my lateness and the resultant discourtesy to the House.
Before commenting on the Westminster case, I wish to set my remarks in the context of local government as a whole. It is important to stress that local government in this country is generally free from corruption and fraud. In evidence to the Nolan committee on standards in public life for the third report on local government, the Audit Commission stated:
The Audit Commission appoints auditors to 469 local authorities. These authorities spend over £50 billion per year. Over 20,000 councillors serve on them and 2 million people work for them.

In 1995/96 there were 1,475 proven cases of fraud and 21 proven cases of corruption involving councillors or local government officers.
The Audit Commission also told Lord Nolan and his committee that 99 per cent. of fraud in local government was committed against local authorities by people from outside. That evidence, with submissions from a wide range of other interests, led the Nolan committee to conclude that the systems in place to deal with probity in local government are generally effective. That fact makes the Westminster case all the more shocking.
The systematic abuse of power—and its financial consequences—by Dame Shirley Porter and David Weeks, as leader and deputy leader of the Conservative majority on Westminster council, is in a league of its own in the annals of local government misconduct and surcharge. The traditional independence of local government officers was undermined by the climate of fear engendered by the intolerant attitude of the Conservative majority on the council. Details of that intolerance are given in the High Court judgment, and I urge some Conservative Members to read it in its entirety, instead of relying on the selective quotes that have been used so far.
Local government officers, unlike civil servants, work for the whole council and not just for the ruling party. That is not a fiction but a practical reality, which informs the culture of most councils, and a vital safeguard of the transparency of decision making in local government, which the House should not lightly discard. On Westminster council, the dividing line—even the grey area—between public purpose and party political purpose was not just blurred: it was totally ignored. Power was concentrated in a few hands and dissent was stifled. In effect, the Conservative leadership took on executive power. That is a warning of what can happen when powerful executive politicians are without adequate checks or balances.
Admittedly, much could be done to modernise the local government committee structure and many hon. Members who have come from local government know how the system works. However, the legal requirement that decision-making committees reflect the political balance of the council is an important safeguard for the public and for minority parties. The other place is considering a Bill that would allow one-party decision-making committees and the concentration of executive power in the hands of individual councillors or elected mayors.
The Bill undermines the strong legal framework that governs access to information and provides for experiments. Westminster was a laboratory where such experiments were allowed to run out of control. The purpose of Westminster Conservative councillors is now clear: they sought to gerrymander the 1990 local elections. In the High Court judgment, Lord Justice Rose said:
Their purpose throughout was to achieve unlawful electoral advantage.
As the hon. Member for Hendon said, there has been no compensation for those harmed by that decision. Figures supplied by the House of Commons Library suggest that the £27 million surcharge confirmed by the Court of Appeal dwarfs all previous surcharges put together.

Mrs. Teresa Gorman: I am sure that, in the interests of accuracy, the hon. Gentleman would


want to note that of the 10 accused, eight have been exonerated and that the two people found guilty intend to appeal. The matter is therefore not complete.

Mr. Burstow: If it is a matter of appeal, we shall have to see what comes next. The hon. Lady will accept that a detailed reading of the Court of Appeal judgment shows that those people acted wilfully, committed misconduct and incurred substantial financial loss. I accept that the court said that two people were involved, but they are two very senior members of the Conservative majority on Westminster council, who led that council in an entirely improper and inappropriate direction for many years.
When Lord Nolan reported to the Prime Minister last July, he made some important recommendations to rebuild public confidence and strengthen the ethical framework of local government. I hope that we shall soon have an opportunity to debate that report in detail and that the Minister can confirm today that there will be a new statutory provision for misuse of public office, which would have a far wider effect than the blunt instrument of surcharge.
Westminster is an extreme and extraordinary case, but the circumstances that made it possible are more likely to be fostered by long periods of uninterrupted one-party rule. Although I would never argue that electoral reform is a cure all, I believe that a proportional voting system would bring a long-overdue gust of fresh air into our town and county halls.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Burstow: I thought that that comment might bring one or two people to their feet, but, in view of the time available, I shall take no interventions.
Such a change would strengthen opposition party representation on many councils where one party has enjoyed unfettered power with little scrutiny for far too many years. Allied to measures to boost turnout, such as a rolling register, PR would make a difference to the quality and effectiveness of local government.
In 1996, the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), the then Secretary of State for the Environment, told the House in answer to a private notice question:
If decisions in respect of Westminster are upheld by the courts, I shall not hesitate to condemn those responsible".—[Official Report, 9 May 1996; Vol. 277, c. 367.]
The Conservative party must now publicly condemn that gross abuse of power and set in motion its own inquiry into what went wrong in Westminster. If it will not put its house in order, I urge the Government to investigate what happened in Westminster. Dame Shirley Porter and her deputy leader, David Weeks, subverted Westminster city council for party-political purposes. Their aim was to create a Tory rotten borough at the heart of our capital. I hope that we shall hear from Conservative Front-Bench Members today a clear and unequivocal condemnation of that corrupt administration's actions over many years.

Mr. Peter Bradley: It is impossible to underplay the importance and impact of this scandal on the thousands of victims in Westminster, on the reputation

of local government and on the Conservative party. An eminent local government QC, Andrew Arden, said that, in his experience, this was
the greatest act of corruption in the history of local government, not financial corruption in the conventional sense, but corruption of the machinery of the authority itself, given over to party political gain, in a way—and to an extent—that is absolutely without precedent … Nothing prepared me for such a naked abuse of power, people and resources; I would have said it was unthinkable".
No amount of cavilling by Conservative Members about the time it took to elicit the truth from recalcitrant Conservatives, or diversions into the defaults of other local authorities, reduces the depth of the scandal or the scale of the guilt of those involved.

Dr. Julian Lewis: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Bradley: No, I shall not give way. Time is pressing. The hon. Gentleman has had his say and it was very interesting.
We are talking not just about political corruption but about one of the crimes of the century—£27 million of public money misapplied on the gerrymandering of Westminster. That is £11 million more than the fraud perpetrated by Peter Clowes, who received a sentence of 10 years for it. It is more than last year's entire annual budget of no fewer than 271 local authorities, including Wrekin, whose budget was a mere £17 million, Basildon, Brighton, Derby, Luton, Milton Keynes, Portsmouth and Southampton. By the time the auditor has finished his investigation, we confidently expect that surcharge to rise to £102 million.
Conservatives in Westminster left not a stone unturned. They broke the law on designated sales. If they were prepared to break the law for votes in one dimension of council activities, it is hardly surprising that they were equally prepared to break the law in others. They shipped thousands of homeless people out of the borough. At one point, they even offered local authorities in the north of England a £400 bounty to take families—and they were roundly rebuked and rebuffed. They subverted the objectives of charities such as the Peabody Trust, which built a 300-unit housing estate for Westminster residents—not in Westminster, but in Hillingdon.
The only interest of Conservatives in city hall was to get people out of the borough and off the electoral register. They used public money to target vote-catching environmental improvements in marginal seats. They subverted the planning process, which was far more likely to yield a result than fiddling with housing at the margins. They encouraged private development as part of office planning consents, and they resisted the development of social housing.
In the 11 years between 1982, when the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) was a member, and 1993, Westminster secured as planning gain just 24 units of social housing. Those who say that there is no development land in Westminster should take a trip to Paddington Basin or go round the corner to Westminster hospital. They should look at the planning consents to see how many units of social housing to meet local need have received consent. It is a round figure. Conservative council members corrupted the development plan to pursue their aim.
It is inconceivable that all that could have happened without the Conservative Government's acquiescence. It is more likely that it had their active connivance.


Labour Members and others made a catalogue of requests for Government action and made inquiries into, for example, the sale of a cemetery, sold for 15 pence and recovered for £4.25 million of public money. No public inquiry was held into those unresolved issues, the gerrymandering of Westminster or the corruption of the unitary development plan. All the claims were rejected by a who's who of Ministers: the late Nicholas Ridley when he was Secretary of State for the Environment; the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine); the former right hon. Member for Bath—Chris Patten—and the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) all protected their colleagues at city hall.
What of the role of others? We have heard references to the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir P. Beresford) and the precious advice that he gave to Dame Shirley Porter just days after her scare in 1986.

Sir Paul Beresford: The hon. Gentleman should be aware that I and others on Wandsworth council—officers and members—have given advice to many councils. Whether they took the advice is down to individual councils, but I could list them: Camden, next door to Westminster; Lewisham, which took my advice by the truckload; and Crawley, which took not only advice but assistance from financial staff of Wandsworth council. Any attempt to smear is wrong and incorrect. If the hon. Gentleman continues with that, he should do so outside the House.

Mr. Bradley: The hon. Member is obviously sensitive on that point. I have not suggested that he has acted improperly; indeed, I am assured that he is honourable. I am sure that other local authorities have listened to his words even if they have not taken his advice. I refer him to the transcript of interviews given by former Conservative colleagues of his, including Patricia Kirwan, on that very point. I am sure that he has read that transcript. There were others, too—Members of this House.

Sir Paul Beresford: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Bradley: No, I must make progress, because I am anxious to hear the Minister's reply. The hon. Gentleman has had his say.
I come to the role of Members of Parliament: the former right hon. Member for Westminster, North—Sir John Wheeler—and the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke), both of whom were present when some of the strategy papers were unveiled by their colleagues from city hall. The right hon. Member—he is an honourable Member—for Cities of London and Westminster said—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order.

Mr. Bradley: —immediately after the provisional—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must resume his seat when I am on my feet. I remind him that all hon. Members of this House are honourable Members. He should remember that.

Mr. Bradley: I apologise; I was simply emphasising the respect in which the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster is held. He said in 1994 that he was
aware of the political dimension
in these matters, so I wonder why, when he was chairman of the Conservative party, he did not think to blow the whistle.
We believe that the scandal goes right to the doors of No. 10. We know that, in 1987, Shirley Porter wrote to the then Prime Minister, Mrs. Thatcher, as follows:
We in Westminster are trying to gentrify the City. We must protect our electoral position which is being seriously eroded by the number of homeless that we have been forced to house … I feel that the problem is now so serious that you should look at it yourself. Could I suggest that one of your Policy Advisors spends some time with my officers looking at the problem in detail? I am afraid that unless something can be done, it will be very difficult for us to keep Westminster Conservative!
The clincher was not the gerrymandering of Westminster; it was the poll tax dodge in 1990. In autumn 1989, Westminster was faced with a poll tax of £429—similar to that of other London boroughs. We know that, after representations were made to the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal, then the Minister for Local Government, and to other Ministers, that figure magically became £195—a vote-winning, election-clinching result.
If we had time, we could spend the whole day going through the scandals that attended Westminster, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) said, the most staggering aspect in recent days of this monumental scandal is the lack of response from Conservative Members. There has been a deafening silence. When wrongdoing on a far smaller scale has been alleged in Labour-run authorities, we have moved quickly—in Doncaster, Glasgow, Hull and Hackney—yet in 10 years we have not heard one word of condemnation in respect of Westminster from Conservative Members. Indeed, they seem keener to savage their current leader in the letter columns of national newspapers than to condemn Shirley Porter's wrongdoing. The early-day motion condemning Shirley Porter has been signed by 136 Members of Parliament, not one of them a Conservative Member and, as has been said, David Weeks, who stands accused not only by the auditor, but by three High Court judges, still sits as a member of Westminster city council.
On 9 May 1996, when the auditor confirmed his findings, the then Secretary of State for the Environment, the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal, said:
I have made it clear that I would condemn utterly any failure to meet the highest standards of propriety, whenever it is found and whoever is found guilty.
If the decisions in respect of Westminster are upheld by the courts, I shall not hesitate to condemn those responsible".
He went on to say:
The only honourable way to deal with an issue of this kind is to say that, if someone is found by the courts of law to be guilty, one condemns unreservedly and without question—whoever that person is, however close one is to them, and for whatever party they happen to stand."—[Official Report, 9 May 1996; Vol. 277, c. 367–69.]
In resisting invitations to condemn, the Prime Minister of the day, the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), said:
I am quite prepared to condemn cases of proven malpractice and those who have been found guilty in a court of law."—[Official Report, 9 May 1996; Vol. 277, c. 362.]


We are still waiting for the right hon. Members for Huntingdon and for Suffolk, Coastal to deliver that pledge.
Another former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath), said in 1994:
It is not a question of individual moral behaviour, but of an allegedly highly organised policy by a political group in local government.
If true"—
it has now been seen to be true—
it is the heaviest blow the Conservatives have had to take in living memory …
The Prime Minister has declared that if proven it will receive the utmost condemnation.
For the Conservative party in Parliament, it would be wise to display to the country the seriousness with which we view this report.
It is time the truth was told. The audit system has failed. It was brought in by the Local Government Finance Act 1992 to act as a stick with which to beat Labour authorities. But there has been no redress for or recompense to victims.
The truth matters and justice matters. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister for an investigation of the Conservative Government's record in aiding and abetting the corruption at Westminster city council. I ask her to ensure that outstanding inquiries are expedited and that Westminster city council—whose role in this saga has not been entirely blameless—takes urgent steps to recover the £27 million of public money owed to the people of Westminster. I ask for an expeditious review of the audit system so that in future we can be assured that the citizen, not the corrupt politician, is at the centre of local democracy.

Mr. Richard Ottaway: I start by offering the apologies of my right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke), who would have liked to be present at today's debate, but who is leading the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee to Northern Ireland at this difficult time.
Today's debate has focused on the events of 10 years ago. As my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. St. Aubyn) observed in his excellent speech—the only speech by a Conservative Member—this is not the first time that the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) has sought to make political capital out of this saga. He was the fairly undistinguished leader of the Labour group on Westminster council in 1994 when, armed with the auditor's provisional report, he led his party to a glorious defeat, despite having constantly raised the issue, as he seeks to do again today.
In the short time available, I wish to make three points. First, the Conservative party is in favour of the highest possible standards in public life: we condemn wrongdoing in any quarter and will do so if the decisions in respect of Westminster are upheld by the court. Secondly, I believe in justice: all the individuals involved in this matter have the right of appeal and, until the legal process is exhausted, any sensible and cautious person would be wise to await the outcome before making a judgment. Thirdly, given the trail of waste, inefficiency and corruption in Labour-controlled councils throughout the country, Labour Members are in no position to lecture anybody.
The original findings of the district auditor in his provisional report were against 10 councillors and officers. Of those 10, one committed suicide and the auditor decided not to uphold the objections in respect of another three. Of the remaining six named in the auditor's final report, the judges have quashed the surcharge relating to three officers; the fourth officer is receiving treatment after suffering a nervous breakdown and the auditor has dropped the action against him. The remaining two have the right of appeal. All those people have been through a traumatic experience and, for most of them, there was no just reason for it.

Mr. Peter Bradley: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Ottaway: No, because the hon. Gentleman far exceeded the amount of time that would have left me with enough time to reply to the debate.
We extend our sympathy to the friends and relatives of Dr. Michael Dun, who was driven to take his own life by the pressures of the accusations made against him. The nature of the inquiry has not escaped comment. In the judgment of the court, the judges stated:
whether Parliament contemplated so gigantic an investigation by an auditor into an objection to local authority accounts we very much doubt. In our judgment, in any future investigation of this kind, it will be essential for the auditor to exercise a sense of proportion and to balance, on the one hand, the need for adequate scrutiny of the accounts and the objections to them and, on the other, the need to avoid a prolonged and inordinately expensive inquiry.
Despite that, the district auditor has decided to appeal against one of the findings.
Lord Nolan clearly found the whole process unsatisfactory. In the third report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which dealt with local government and involved taking evidence from Westminster, he wrote:
we have been persuaded by the evidence put to us by many witnesses that the concept of surcharge of councillors is unsatisfactory. We believe it is particularly unsatisfactory to have a procedure in England and Wales in which the district auditor formally can prosecute a case against individual councillors, judges guilt or innocence, and determines the penalty on the basis of his own calculation of financial loss. We believe that the concept of surcharge itself is now outdated. It should be abolished and replaced by the direct involvement of the courts in judging guilt or innocence and the appropriate penalty.
I invite the Minister to say whether the Government agree with Lord Nolan.
This case illustrates the danger of jumping to conclusions and condemning people before the judicial process is completed. On 9 May 1996, the then Leader of the Opposition, now the Prime Minister, said—

Mr. Peter Bradley: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the hon. Gentleman to mislead the House? On 19 December, the High Court judges refused the right of appeal to Shirley Porter and David Weeks. The legal process is at an end and they are guilty. Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman must not accuse another hon. Member of misleading the House about something that is purely a matter of debate. I remind right hon. and hon. Members that the sub judice rule


applies when notice of appeal is given. As I understand it, leave to appeal is being sought, so the House's rule does not apply now. As it remains possible that the rule may once more be brought into play, it is probably advisable, even on such a serious subject about which hon. Members have strong feelings, to use moderate language.

Mr. Ottaway: I am not seeking to hide behind the sub judice rule. I am simply stating the facts.
On 9 May 1996, the then Leader of the Opposition invited my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), then the Prime Minister, to condemn the conduct of those named in the auditor's report as "disgraceful and improper." Bearing in mind the fact that, since then, the case against three of those named has been quashed by the High Court, such a precipitate demand from the right hon. Gentleman illustrates the serious danger of making premature accusations before the wheels of justice have turned and those responsible have contemplated their inquiry. I am sure that all hon. Members present would invite the Prime Minister to correct the implication of his remarks in May 1996.
What is unbelievable today is the sheer hypocrisy of a party that has such a catalogue of ropy practices in local government. Thirty Labour councils are under investigation following allegations of corruption, impropriety—including the acceptance of bribes—fiddling expenses, failure to declare financial interests and gerrymandering. Frankly, what we have heard today is the pot trying to call the kettle black.
Against that background, the Government's approach to Westminster council gives rise to the greatest concern. Their decision to cut the council's SSA illustrates their embarrassment at Westminster's success in keeping its council tax at such a competitively low level. It costs Westminster £33 million to provide services for non-residents. Its SSA allowance for that is £18 million, so there is a shortfall of £15 million.
Westminster is a world-class city that takes great pride in caring for its environment and protecting our heritage. Some 71 million visitors visit Westminster every year and that poses particular problems connected with density and cleanliness. The Government, looking for excuses to reduce the SSA, say that those visitors do not cause such problems. To argue that density is not a problem for Westminster council by quoting fatuous examples of people staying at the Ritz is disingenuous and short-changes the residents of Westminster.
A report prepared by KPMG demonstrates that density is relevant to the costs of providing services for businesses and commuters, but the Government have rejected that report. To her credit, I was pleased to note that the hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) said that she accepted the basic conclusions of that report. We look forward to welcoming her in the Lobby when we vote on the revenue support grant.
Westminster city council has a proud record. On housing, it has the best record in inner London of keeping the number of empty properties to a minimum—in contrast to the efforts of Islington and Hackney. It has the cleanest streets in London and has won many prizes for that. It is the greenest borough in London, with many

well-kept parks and gardens. It also has the cleanest refuse fleet in the world. On education, it leads the way. The pupil-teacher ratio is 18 in primary schools and 15 in secondary schools. The Labour party talks about low class sizes, but Conservative Westminster delivers them.
Westminster is a borough which protects the vulnerable. While Labour has been cutting expenditure, it has been increasing spending on social services. It spent £337 per head on social services—it has increased by 15 per cent.—in the past three years. It is a borough which believes in competitive tendering and its programmes have saved every resident £200 a year on his council tax bill. It is now a pioneering borough in the use of the private finance initiative. It is a borough which takes pride in the provision of its services by providing one-stop centres that are open in the evenings and on Saturday mornings—when the public need them.
Despite that high quality of service, the borough is also able to provide the lowest council tax in the country. That is what irritates the heck out of the Labour party and explains why it is falling over itself to cut the borough's SSA.
Westminster is a borough which has a right to be proud of itself. The Conservative party is proud of it and we believe that the public are also proud of it. That is why they will re-elect a Conservative administration in May, as they did in 1994, to carry on the good work.

The Minister for Local Government and Housing (Ms Hilary Armstrong): We have heard a sorry tale this morning that does none of local government any good. Those of us who care about local government and that local people should be able to feel that it is working for and with them can only feel extremely sad about what we have heard and the response from the Opposition spokesman, hon. Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Ottaway).
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) for raising this important issue, which provides me with an opportunity to set out the Government's proposals to improve standards in local government. A former member of Westminster city council, my hon. Friend is well qualified to introduce the debate because he was one of those who played an important part in bringing its discredited homes for votes policy to the attention of the district auditor.
My hon. Friend will appreciate that, in view of the likelihood of further appeals, I cannot comment on the Westminster case in detail, but he and my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) are right to remind the House that the saga has been grossly unfair to people who live within the boundaries of Westminster city council. We have a duty to be concerned about those people.
Those who have been waiting to be rehoused have had to suffer unsatisfactory accommodation for longer than necessary, with no means of redress, while the council tax payers of Westminster have had to meet the additional housing costs arising from the council's decision to keep perfectly good properties vacant, thus incurring high temporary accommodation costs.
The issues raised by the Westminster case will be tackled by the Government. In our manifesto, we set out a range of measures to ensure good local government.


We believe that that matters not only because it provides and supports many of our services and spends huge sums of money in doing so, but because it is the one government institution that empowers the citizen through the ballot box and other means to influence the way in which local issues are dealt with on their behalf.
The Government are determined to ensure that the integrity and credibility of the local democratic process are upheld and not further undermined by authorities that ignore or in some cases work against the needs of their communities.
The number of such authorities is small, but the damage that they cause to the morale of many dedicated local government members and officers and to the standing of local government in the eyes of the public is considerable. Probity in local government is essential: without the highest standards of probity, local government cannot gain the confidence of the people or the legitimacy that it needs to play a proper role in our country.
We have said all along that wrongdoing in local government should be investigated and dealt with accordingly. When the Nolan committee recommendations on local government conduct were published last year, the Prime Minister stressed the Government's determination to improve standards. We want to establish a new ethical framework for local government that will let members and officers know exactly where they stand and provide clear and equitable penalties for misbehaviour.
We will lay a good deal of the responsibility for the rehabilitation of local government on authorities, but we will also put in place procedures for monitoring what happens to ensure that complaints are properly investigated and that the appropriate action is taken. We are now considering the recommendations of the Nolan committee and we will announce our proposals for consultation in a few weeks.
One of Nolan's most prominent recommendations was that surcharge should be abolished and that a new offence of misuse of public office should be introduced across the public sector. We have heard much comment about the current system from Opposition Members. They seem to forget that they introduced it and continued to support and defend it throughout their period of office. Should we decide to abolish surcharge, we shall need to ensure that there is a workable alternative. However, we are clear that there must be an effective deterrent against financial wrongdoing and that, when it occurs, there must be an effective way of dealing with it. As hon. Members know, we are considering the offence of misuse of public office wherever people are represented.
The auditor is the financial watchdog for local authorities and is ideally placed to identify possible misconduct involving financial loss.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We must move on to the next debate.

Tax Avoidance (Offshore Trusts)

11 am

Mr. David Maclean: While it is always a delight to see the Financial Secretary in her place, I regret that the Paymaster General is not here to listen to the debate and reply to it. In accordance with the conventions, and out of courtesy, I dropped him a note on Monday saying that I intended to refer to him in my speech today. So it is an additional source of regret that he has not seen fit to be here in person and is letting the Financial Secretary answer questions on his behalf. We also saw that last week in Treasury questions.
I am delighted to have this opportunity to debate tax avoidance and offshore trusts. It is timely for three reasons. First, the Budget is less than two months away and we can soon expect to hear what progress has been made on the Government's plans for a general anti-avoidance law. Secondly, the taxation of offshore trusts is under review. Thirdly, that review has been steered by a Minister who is closely linked with a Guernsey-based offshore trust. Some might say that that makes the Paymaster General uniquely well qualified to conduct a review of offshore trusts. Others might say that he has a severe conflict of interest and that, for that reason and for others which I shall explain later, his position has become untenable.
No one likes to pay more tax than he has to. So I make no criticism of anyone who takes legitimate and legal steps to minimise his tax liability. However, where genuine loopholes exist, where unforeseen gaps in the tax system allow people who clearly should be paying to avoid tax altogether, the Government should act. Blocking loopholes helps to keep tax rates low for everyone. That is a principle which guided the previous Government. Our last Budget stepped up the campaign against people who cheated the system. We wanted to protect genuine taxpayers who paid their fair share.
The Inland Revenue was given extra funds to step up its work on the black economy, on income tax compliance and on corporate tax avoidance. Her Majesty's Customs and Excise received an extra £88 million to boost its campaign against excise fraud and VAT evasion.
Of course, there are other ways to prevent tax avoidance. More intensive policing of the system is not the only way. The best way is to keep the system simple in the first place. The fewer taxes there are, the fewer reliefs, exemptions and allowances are available, the less potential there is for tax experts to work the system to their advantage. That is one reason why we were working steadily towards the abolition of inheritance tax and capital gains tax. Both are surrounded by a thriving industry of accountants and lawyers specialising in tax avoidance. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell) was Financial Secretary, he made the Conservative Government's position on tax evasion clear. He said:
The Government remain determined to prevent the growth of tax avoidance to the level that existed before 1979. And over the last 14 years a large number of measures has been introduced to counter avoidance, including some in the present Finance Bill. … But there is a point where avoidance can be regarded as improper and unacceptable, deserving to be looked at critically, and deserving to be stopped."—[Official Report, 18 June 1983; Vol. 226, c. 761.]


That is what he said, but what about the present Chancellor of the Exchequer? In Treasury questions last week, he said from the Dispatch Box that when my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley)
was Financial Secretary to the Treasury and was asked to take action on offshore trusts, he said that:
'It would impose a substantial and unreasonable burden on business.—[Official Report, 15 January 1997; Vol. 304, c. 482.]
So there we apparently have it. The Chancellor gave the House the impression that the previous Government, when asked to take action in 1990, did nothing.
Naturally, I looked up the quotation that the Chancellor used. I can only assume that it is because of what No. 10 calls deep psychological flaws in his character that his imagination has run wild with the actuality. The shadow Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden, was asked a question by the then Member of Parliament, Mr. David Shaw. It will enrage the Prime Minister when he discovers that his Chancellor has been using with approbation answers inspired by David Shaw. David Shaw asked my right hon. Friend to consider a complicated system of prior notification whereby all companies, all trusts and individuals would have to inform the Inland Revenue of any proposed transactions between themselves and a tax haven. My right hon. Friend said in reply:
The Inland Revenue devotes substantial resources to countering tax avoidance and evasion, including the kind of offshore transactions involving tax havens to which the questions refer. Where appropriate, the Government would not hesitate to bring forward such further legislation as was found to be necessary. To require general notifications of business transactions with tax havens would, however, impose a substantial and unreasonable burden on business."—[Official Report, 10 January 1990; Vol. 164, c. 705–06.]
There is the true and accurate quotation. We can all now see why the No. 10 spin doctors are so keen to correct the Chancellor's perceived version of events in everything that he says and does.

Mr. Peter Snape: We are all following what the right hon. Gentleman has to say with interest. Will he comment on the reports that a donor to the Conservative party based in Hong Kong had an offshore trust in Taiwan? This donor was known as White Powder Ma for some reason about which I am not too sure. He wanted back the £1 million that he had donated to the Conservative party because the previous Government failed to spring his father from gaol. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will mention that as he goes through.

Mr. Maclean: That is nothing to do with this debate. The one thing that occurs to me is that that donor apparently gave £1 million to the Conservative party and the policy did not change. Bernie Ecclestone gave £1 million to the Labour party and got the policy changed.

Mr. Snape: rose—

Mr. Maclean: The hon. Gentleman is an experienced hand. He has been here slightly longer than I have. He knows that I will not be deflected this early in the debate.
When my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden was Financial Secretary, he said that further legislation would be introduced if necessary. Indeed, further legislation was introduced. The most important change in the way in which individuals are taxed on their holdings and offshore trusts was introduced by the Conservative Government in 1991. In his 1991 Budget speech, the then Chancellor, Norman Lamont, argued:
I do not think that it is right for a relatively small number of wealthy people to shift very large assets into offshore trusts simply in order to avoid United Kingdom tax."—[Official Report, 19 March 1991; Vol. 188, c. 174.]
As a consequence of the Conservative legislation in 1991, United Kingdom residents transferring assets to an offshore trust for the benefit of themselves or their family are now liable for capital gains tax. It is notable that in a recent article in Accountancy Age on the possibility of a Labour Government cracking down on offshore tax avoidance via trusts, the chairman of the Jersey Fund Managers Association was quoted as saying:
The Conservative Government already levelled up the playing field. I don't think a Labour Government holds any particular worries for us.
So while the Chancellor huffs and puffs in the House trying to pretend that the previous Government did not take action on offshore trusts, the view of the operators of the trusts is that the legislation passed by the Conservative Government removed so many tax advantages that they have no fear that Labour can make it much tighter.
However, the present Government have a long record of commitment to tighten up on offshore trusts. Back in 1993 the Chancellor published a Tribune pamphlet entitled "How to tackle tax abuse". His argument was simple. He argued that £10 billion could be raised by a combination of a windfall tax on the privatised utilities and the closing of tax loopholes. As he wrote at the time:
The Chancellor should end the tax abuses which reach to the heart of our public finances by indulging the super rich at the expense of all the rest of us".
On offshore trusts, the Chancellor wrote:
As the law stands, offshore owners of UK assets, including companies, shares and land, pay no CGT when they trade in these assets. A UK resident can transfer assets to an offshore trust and the trustees can then make payments to beneficiaries in the UK, avoiding much tax liability.
That was in his pamphlet "How to tackle tax abuse." I am sure that the Paymaster General can confirm the accuracy of the Chancellor's account of how one avoids paying tax.
Just a year later, the then shadow Chancellor returned to the fray, publishing another paper, entitled "Tackling Tax Abuses, Tackling Unemployment". He noted:
The abuse of offshore trusts and companies continues",
and added:
All Governments owe it to their people to take action against the persistent few who, at the expense of everyone else, shelter their wealth overseas whilst seeking to enjoy the benefits financed by those who pay their tax at home".
In his speech to the Labour party conference, he pledged:
A Labour Chancellor will not permit tax reliefs to millionaires in offshore tax havens.


Therefore, it was no surprise when the Chancellor used last November's pre-Budget report to promise a general anti-avoidance measure on the ground that closing loopholes one by one
is no longer a satisfactory response to the continual inventiveness of tax planners".
That then seems to be the Chancellor's plan—a general anti-avoidance catch-all measure. I shall be interested to find out how the Government go about putting such a provision together, especially as one commentator said:
As a matter of principle, we believe that the citizen is entitled to know where he or she stands before the tax law. A catch-all provision that came into play when all else fails, is unacceptable in a fair tax system.
Who is that commentator? Why, it is the Chancellor himself, writing in 1994, but we all understand that much has changed for him since then. At that time, he thought that he would like to be the Prime Minister; now he thinks that he is the Prime Minister.
The Government's position on offshore trusts is clear. They want to tighten the tax rules, so how embarrassing it must have been when it began to leak out that the Paymaster General had his own offshore tax haven. Although he has been reluctant to give the full facts, which have been extracted from him painfully over the past six weeks, we know at least that he is a discretionary beneficiary of the Orion trust, a Guernsey-based fund which was established by his late Belgian friend and business associate Madame Joska Bourgeois.
Madame Bourgeois was a remarkable woman. She made a £30 million fortune selling Jaguars to the Belgians. How many Belgians were so keen to buy Jaguar cars in the early 1980s that that car dealer made a fortune out of it? I confess that I do not know of any other dealer who made money out of selling Jaguar cars, with their famous reliability in the early 1980s, before Edwardes turned the company around. This is a case for Hercules Poirot to investigate.
I have no objection to any individual benefiting from such a trust, provided that he complies with the law, but most decent people, including many of those who voted for the Labour party at the last election and who apparently are now deserting it in droves, cannot stomach the blatant double standards that this sorry affair has exposed.
The Government clearly oppose offshore trusts, yet the Minister in charge of the policy has such a trust himself. Even worse, his plans for individual savings accounts will cut tax relief for many thousands of savers with more than £50,000 in personal equity plans and tax-exempt special savings accounts, yet he has the benefit from at least £12 million that is stuffed into a secretive tax haven, avoiding tax all together. No wonder he has been accused of hypocrisy and by no less a person than the Deputy Prime Minister, who said on "Breakfast with Frost":
You may argue that the politician"—
the Paymaster General—
has said one thing and perhaps done another. That seems to be the greatest charge against him.
That charge is hypocrisy and how true it is. At least that was the greatest charge against the Paymaster General on 14 December.
To understand the complex web of dealings in which the Paymaster General has enmeshed himself, we must

first understand the nature of the Orion trust. Gavin Lumsden, writing in The Times on 20 December, described various types of trusts and went on:
The Orion Trust in Guernsey, of which Mr. Robinson is a potential beneficiary, does not conform to any of the tax rules, not because it is an offshore haven, but because the woman who set it up, Joska Bourgeois, was a non-UK resident and therefore outside the scope of UK tax law. Because she died in 1994, Madame Bourgeois, a Belgian national living in Switzerland, had effectively put Orion beyond the reaches of the UK taxman forever. Because of this, Orion can grow its assets tax-free and distribute the capital to beneficiaries in the UK who have no tax to pay. The implications of this for Mr. Robinson were enormous when last year he was given the right to buy shares in Trans Tec, a company he founded. Mr. Robinson could have subscribed to the shares but would have had to pay tax on any increase on their value whenever he came to sell them. He could also have sold his rights to a third party, but that would have denied him the benefit of growth in the shares' value. Instead, Mr. Robinson sold the right to buy the shares to Stenbell, another company he owned, which sold them on again to Orion. By transferring them to Orion he could be confident that a trust, of which he was a potential beneficiary, could benefit from the growth in the shares free of tax.
According to Mr. Fitzpatrick of Chantrey Vellacot (accountants) it is 'a classic case study in how to use an offshore trust.' The effect of this could be dramatic if the Trans Tec shares continue to perform. In the past two years they have doubled in value. Orion now owns £13 million of the company shares. If they were to double again, the trust will have gained £13 million. Ordinarily, this would produce a £5 million Capital Gains Tax bill—but not for Orion or Mr. Robinson or any other beneficiary of the trust.
That is the view of the experts: it is a classic case study into how to use an offshore trust for tax-avoidance purposes.

Mr. Ian Bruce: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the one thing that should have happened is that all those transactions should have been totally at arm's length and done on the basis of true value? Are we to assume that the Paymaster General has extraordinarily short arms?

Mr. Maclean: My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. I shall come to the arm's length attempt when I discuss Stenbell Ltd., but I must set out the chain of events if the House is to understand what has gone on. I have researched this in some detail, but I shall try to be as brief as possible. The House will find that the Paymaster General has attempted to put himself at arm's length from the Orion trust.
The Paymaster General has so far failed to answer several questions about the Orion trust. It was set up by the executors of Madam Bourgeois's will following a bequest in her will. The Paymaster General was one of her executors who had to set up the trust. He was the executor of her will from when she died in 1994, but he resigned abruptly in 1996, just a few months before the trust opened for business in Guernsey.
Who are the trustees? The Paymaster General will not tell us, except to say that they are independent. Offshore tax experts believe that they are professional trustees who manage various trust portfolios and that they are linked to a trust management company called Richmond Corporate Services. The first question that the Paymaster General has to answer is: did he, when he was executor of Madam Bourgeois's will, have any part in the selection of Richmond Corporate Services?
The Paymaster General and seven other family members are discretionary beneficiaries. The independent trustees advise the trust and decide when and how much


to pay, but, as the settlor of the trust, Madam Bourgeois, is dead, the normal modus operandi is for trustees of discretionary trusts to have a so-called "letter of wishes" from the individual whom they regard as their client, so that they can administer the trust as required. The second question for the Paymaster General is: has he ever written a letter of wishes to the Orion trustees? If he has, he has been even more economical with the truth than we have believed so far.
In June 1996, TransTec, the Paymaster General's highly successful company, of which he is chairman, decided to raise £58 million by a rights issue of five new shares for every nine. The chairman of TransTec, the Paymaster, had the right to buy 9,805,550 shares at 103p each—a discount on the market price. But the Paymaster did not take up the shares personally. He sold the rights to buy them to a company called Stenbell Ltd. Stenbell Ltd. has two directors; the Paymaster General is one. He says that he did not take up the shares himself because he could not afford to. He was quoted as saying on weekend television:
I didn't have the £10 million handy to do it
but apparently his own company, Stenbell, did have the £10 million handy to do it.
I have obtained the notes to the Stenbell accounts for the period ended 31 May 1997. They make interesting reading: Stenbell has an authorised share capital of 1,000 ordinary shares of £1 each. It only has two ordinary shares of £1 each allotted, called up and fully paid, and guess whose they are?
So is Stenbell a going concern? The notes to the Stenbell accounts say:
At the period end, the company had a deficit of assets over liabilities of £240,850. The continued trading of the company is dependent upon the continued support of its principal creditor, the Geoffrey Robinson Personal Settlement. In the opinion of the directors, this support is likely to be forthcoming for the foreseeable future, as evidenced by a further injection of loan capital since the year end. Accordingly, in the opinion of the directors, it is appropriate to prepare the statements on a going concern basis.
That is pretty clear, is it not? Stenbell has no assets whatever except those that the "Geoffrey Robinson Personal Settlement" give it.
Therefore the third question for the Paymaster General is: did the "Geoffrey Robinson Personal Settlement" finance or guarantee the money so that his company, Stenbell, could buy the £10.1 million of shares from his company, TransTec?
As we now know, Stenbell did not retain the shares. They were sold to the Orion trust, whose trustees are, supposedly, independent, and if tax is to be genuinely and legally avoided, those trustees must operate without any influence from the Paymaster General. Indeed, when this affair broke, the Paymaster General's solicitors confirmed the independence of the trustees. His solicitors, Titmuss Sainer Dechert, rushed out a letter to The Observer, on 8 December 1997, stating:
Our client did not appoint the trustees of the Orion Trust, who act entirely independently of him and are not controlled, or their decisions influenced, by him in any way; the trustees of Orion make their own decisions.
They threatened immediate libel proceedings if the newspaper continued to publish further reports—threats which were all bluff and have now been quietly dropped.
However, a few days later, the Paymaster General moved from threatening legal offensives to a charm offensive, when he gave extensive interviews to the Sunday media. Among other things, he told us that he did influence the Orion trust to buy the TransTec rights issue that he had sold to Stenbell. As the Paymaster General is an honourable man and a Member of the House, I believe him. He did influence the independent trustees, or as he says:
I did suggest that they took up the rights issue and they did".
I can only conclude that, as the Paymaster General is an honourable man, Titmuss Sainer Dechert have the psychological flaw that the Prime Minister sees in his Chancellor, and that they, his solicitors, lied, lied and lied again in their letter of 8 December when they said that the Orion trustees did not have their decisions influenced by Her Majesty's Paymaster General.
Later, the same independent trustees were to jump at the Paymaster's next "suggestion", to buy his shares in Coventry City football club, which they did. Why should those apparently independent, professional trustees, listen to the Paymaster's suggestions unless they had a letter of wishes from him, as their principal beneficiary, giving guidance on how they should act?
I must accept that the Paymaster has operated the rules cleverly and well. Indeed, he is a highly successful and clever business man. He is the only man in history to buy a company from Robert Maxwell and find that it actually has more assets than liabilities. It is not appropriate today, but the Paymaster General's earlier dealings with Robert Maxwell deserve a thorough investigation. However, as far as the Orion operation is concerned, he would no doubt have succeeded if it were not for his public position now and the investigations of the press.
Let us consider the chain of events in summary. The Paymaster is executor of Madam Bourgeois's will, but resigns just before the Orion trust is operative. At the same time, his company, TransTec, planned to have a rights issue which will gain him almost 10 million new shares. He sells the rights to those shares to his company, Stenbell, which buys the shares—presumably financed by the "Geoffrey Robinson Personal Settlement"—and sells them on to the offshore Orion trust, which just happens to have acted on his suggestion to buy them. Why involve Stenbell? That is simply to add another link to the chain and make it look more like an arm's-length operation. If Orion bought the shares directly from the Paymaster General, he could be deemed by the Inland Revenue to be the settlor of the shares, and full income tax liability would attach, as a result of legal changes made by the previous, Tory, Government.
It is a classic case of the use of intermediate companies and offshore trusts to avoid tax on a massive scale, perfectly legally. The Paymaster's dealings have been designed to persuade the Inland Revenue that he was acting at arm's length.
We need to consider two further curious little events. The first concerns an interesting note that I found in the Stenbell accounts. It says that for the period ending 31 May 1997, Stenbell sold on shares to the Orion trust:
A Trust in which Mr G Robinson MP is a beneficiary".
Note the wording "a beneficiary", not a discretionary beneficiary, as we had been told by the Paymaster.
Therefore, the fourth question for the Paymaster General is: are the Stenbell accounts, which he has produced, from a company that he controls, wrong? Have


they misrepresented his actual position as a potential discretionary beneficiary, which he tells us that he is? We need to know.
Then there is what I call the "eve of poll affair." The eve of poll was not a happy night for me and many of my Conservative colleagues, who saw election defeat looming, but it was a great day for the Paymaster General. Not only did he sense victory on the morrow and a job in Government, but the Orion trust was suddenly informed that another 2.95 million TransTec shares were to be settled on it. The Paymaster General says that he knows nothing about it. He says:
You'd have to ask the settlors that. I'm not briefed"—
but apparently the settlor was the late Madame Bourgeois and, of course, the Paymaster General was the executor of her will before he resigned just before the Orion trust became operative and he could be a beneficiary.
Surely it is uncharacteristically careless of the Paymaster, the successful and clever business man, to have, shall we say, "mislaid" 2.95 million of his own company's shares, which he failed to settle on the Orion trust, of which he is a beneficiary, at the outset, but which was then settled by a deed of arrangement, completed on 30 April, the eve of the general election. And the Paymaster General says that he has no idea how that convoluted state of affairs and amazing coincidences came about. I am afraid he must tell us.
The next question to the Paymaster General is: who informed the Orion trust of the 2.95 million missing TransTec shares, and why were they not transferred with the original bequest?
The Paymaster says that we need to ask the settlors that. No we do not. We are asking the Paymaster that question. He is the one who needs to come clean. We have no influence on the settlors of the Orion trustees, but we know that the Paymaster has. If the Paymaster General can influence them to buy his TransTec and Coventry City shares, surely he can influence them to tell him the circumstances surrounding this extraordinary share transfer—and then he can tell the House of Commons. It is about time he said something in the House of Commons about his dealings.
The legal technicalities of offshore trusts have served the Paymaster well. Apart from the tax avoidance advantages, they have enabled him to shelter behind highly evasive answers to parliamentary questions. As the House can see, this is a complex matter which is difficult to set out simply. That has enabled the Paymaster General to hide behind arcane offshore trust law. But slowly and surely, the complex web of his transfers and share dealings has been untangled, and day by day his position becomes more untenable.
The latest ministerial code, revised and endorsed by the Prime Minister—the one I have still refers to Ministers' spouses, not their partners—states:
Ministers must scrupulously avoid any danger of an actual or apparent conflict of interest between their ministerial position and their private financial interests".
The Prime Minister says that the Paymaster General has followed the code—that he has avoided any apparent conflict of interest. But in his television interviews, the Paymaster General has admitted that on some issues he has given advice to the Chancellor of the Exchequer which goes against his own financial interests.
Thus if we take the Paymaster's version of events, which I believe to be true, as a Minister of the Crown he has looked at the policy options on tax evasion which his Treasury civil servants have provided, and he has advised the Chancellor to adopt an option or options disadvantageous to his personal financial interests. That is a noble thing for him to have done, but it is still a clear contravention of the ministerial code. That code, endorsed by the Prime Minister, does not advise Ministers to act against their personal interests when they face a conflict of interest. It tells them to avoid any "actual or apparent" conflict in the first place.
I must admit that the Prime Minister is showing more resolve in bluffing out this flouting of the code by the Paymaster General than the latter showed with his threat to sue the press for libel.
The Paymaster General is the Minister responsible for corporate taxation and general accounting issues in the Treasury. It is not possible for him to avoid any apparent conflict of interest so long as he is a discretionary beneficiary of an offshore tax haven. The ministerial code is quite specific:
In some cases it may not be possible to devise such a mechanism … in such a case, it may be necessary for the Minister in question to cease to hold the office in question".
The Prime Minister even states in the foreword:
I will expect all Ministers to work within the letter and the spirit of the Code".
If the Prime Minister is to follow his own code, he must immediately ask for the Paymaster General's resignation.
That, of course, is not how this Government of pals and cronies act. We read that when the code was about to be flagrantly breached by the Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister apparently revised it to accommodate his right hon. Friend's private arrangements.
The Prime Minister has stood loyally by his friend the Paymaster. We read that they are very good friends; indeed, on at least two occasions the Paymaster General has put his luxury villa in Tuscany at the disposal of the Prime Minister and his family. My reading of the press reports suggests that this is not a self-catering "bring your own sheets and flea powder" establishment. It is apparently a very high-class joint—the sort of place I am not allowed into. I have not tried to calculate how much more four weeks in Tuscany in a luxury villa in August might cost than, say, a few nights in the Ritz hotel in Paris. No doubt others will do the calculation for me.
There is also a new angle on which the Prime Minister must act—now. Because of revelations concerning the influence that the Paymaster General exerted on Orion to buy his TransTec shares, and the probability that he has therefore tainted the offshore trust and technically brought it onshore, it is said that the Inland Revenue is investigating his links with the Orion trust. Is that true? The normal rules ensuring strict client confidentiality for ordinary citizens in their tax affairs are absolutely right and proper. But this is no ordinary citizen: this is a senior Minister in Her Majesty's Treasury with special responsibility relating to taxation who may be under investigation for tax avoidance. He cannot therefore shelter behind the client confidentiality rule. He must answer the question, and answer it soon. Is the Paymaster aware of any Inland Revenue investigation into the TransTec shares transfer to the Orion trust, or into his influence on their purchase? On that he must come clean.
Furthermore, has the right hon. Gentleman now told the permanent secretary at the Treasury, Sir Terry Burns, the full facts? I feel sorry for the permanent secretary; like all good perm secs of my experience he will do his utmost to defend his Minister and protect him from his own folly. The Paymaster General said in a statement of 29 November:
I informed him"—
the permanent secretary—
that I was a discretionary beneficiary under a trust established for my family. After advice from the Permanent Secretary and Titmuss Sainer and Dechert, I decided in accordance with their advice, that there was no need to include this in the blind trust arrangements, since I was a discretionary beneficiary.
It is interesting that Sir Gordon Downey took a different view when he looked into the matter, but I shall not go into that today. I am concerned with the Paymaster General's dealings as a Minister of the Crown, not with any failure on his part to register his interests as a Member of Parliament.
What would the permanent secretary to the Treasury say now that more of the truth has come out? Wisely, like any great man who has been duped, he is saying very little. He has still not replied to the shadow Chancellor's letter of 12 December, in which he pointed out that the dealings of the Orion trust cannot be compared with a blind trust. That of course was the assumption on which the permanent secretary worked when the Paymaster General told him of his "beneficial family trust". In truth, the permanent secretary cannot reply, and I do not criticise him for that. Any reply that he could make would kill off his Minister.
The time has come for the Paymaster General to go. He has ducked and dived, he has threatened and charmed, but he has failed to answer the crucial questions on his business affairs. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is also guilty of hiding the facts from the House. My right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor has repeatedly asked him for details of the Paymaster's dealings, yet the Chancellor relies for answer on the press statement issued by the Paymaster on 8 December. That press notice contains the infamous Titmuss Sainer Dechert letter stating that the Paymaster did not control or influence the Orion trust. We now know that assertion to be false; yet the Chancellor in his parliamentary answers merely refers to it for his defence. It is disgraceful and astonishing that the best defence the Second Lord of the Treasury can muster is based on a lawyers' letter which, as I said earlier, lied, lied and lied again.
It is time for the Paymaster to go, not just because he has been economical with the truth, as my detailed account today has revealed, but because of the apparent and obvious conflict of interest. Who in the country will believe that a man who benefits from at least £12 million in a tax haven has no conflict of interest when doing his job of clamping down on tax evasion? It beggars belief. And who will believe that the Inland Revenue will fearlessly investigate the status of the Orion trust and the supposed independence of its trustees when one of the principal beneficiaries includes the Revenue's own Minister at the Treasury?
It is time for the Paymaster to go because of the double standards that this case exposes. The Government are vitriolic about offshore trusts, yet one of their senior Ministers benefits enormously from such a trust. Here we have a Minister who presided at a press conference to launch the Government's new savings accounts, which clobber 300,000 middle-class savers, just 18 months after he suggested to Orion that it buy 10 million of his shares and then tuck them away in a tax haven for his and his family's use. If the right hon. Gentleman does not see the inconsistency or hypocrisy in that, he is the only one who does not. The Deputy Prime Minister sees it, but apparently our Prime Minister does not.
It is time for the Paymaster General to go because he has failed to answer any of the crucial questions that must be answered if he is to be left with any credibility or trust. So that the Minister answering today has a clear and concise list of them, let me summarise the questions that must be answered by the Paymaster. First, did he have any part in the selection of Richmond Corporate Services as trustees of the Orion trust? Secondly, has he ever written a letter of wishes to the Orion trustees?
Thirdly, did the "Geoffrey Robinson Personal Settlement" finance or guarantee the money so that Stenbell Ltd. could buy the TransTec shares? Fourthly, Stenbell Ltd., of which the Paymaster General was a director, has produced accounts describing him as a beneficiary, not a discretionary beneficiary, of the Orion trust. Are those accounts wrong?
Fifthly, who informed the Orion trust of the 2.95 million TransTec shares that were settled on 30 April? Sixthly, why were those TransTec shares not transferred with the original bequest to Orion? Seventhly, is the Paymaster aware of any Inland Revenue investigation of the TransTec shares transfer to the Orion trust, or his influence on their purchase?
Eighthly, has the Paymaster now told the permanent secretary at the Treasury, Sir Terry Burns, that he has influenced the Orion trust by suggesting that it buy his shares in TransTec and Coventry City football club, and is the permanent secretary still of the view that Orion is no different from a blind trust?
Ninthly, does the Paymaster General still believe that he is complying with the rules in the ministerial code that insist that there should be no apparent conflict of interest, when he benefits from £12 million in a tax haven, despite the fact that his ministerial responsibilities include closing tax loopholes? Finally, does he believe that full disclosure on all financial dealings is the only way to ensure that he has acted with due propriety and fairness? Those are important words.
I shall table all those questions today as official parliamentary questions. The Paymaster General must answer them. Indeed, the Chancellor of the Exchequer must answer them; no longer can he dodge them by hiding behind a lawyer's letter that we now know to be totally untrue. If the Paymaster General—or the Chancellor or the Financial Secretary today on his behalf—does not answer those questions, he must go, and go now, not just because of his conflict of interest, not just because of his economy with the truth, and not just because of the evident double standards. He must go because he has failed his own ethical test.
In a letter to The Times critical of the Conservative Government's handling of the sale of The Times and The Sunday Times to Rupert Murdoch, the Paymaster General wrote:
What is required therefore is the full disclosure of all the financial documents and legal opinions. Only in this way can the public be satisfied that this important transaction has been handled with due propriety and fairness.
He continued:
It is an occasion where proper behaviour must be seen to have been observed and the public assured that the right judgment has been arrived at.
Those are the Paymaster General's words, not mine. He has written his own political suicide note. He stands condemned in his own words. He has no credibility left. He must go.

Mr. Ross Cranston: I would have congratulated the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) on raising this serious subject, but unfortunately he has used the debate for an unjustified attack on my hon. Friend the Paymaster General. I shall not go into the details; I shall make just three observations.
First, the right hon. Gentleman misunderstands the nature of trusts, and the position of beneficiaries and discretionary beneficiaries. I suggest that he take instruction from some of his hon. Friends, who know more about such matters than he apparently does.
Secondly, the House, through its Committee, has cleared my hon. Friend the Paymaster General. Thirdly, for what it is worth, I have full confidence in my hon. Friend.
I shall address the serious matter of tax avoidance and offshore trusts. The right hon. Gentleman said that the previous Government had taken certain steps in relation to tax avoidance. He mentioned in particular the changes in 1991 to the Finance Act. There is no doubt that from time to time, the previous Government made amendments to close gaps in the tax legislation. Unfortunately, they failed to do so systematically. They were often motivated by the haemorrhaging of public finances, rather than by any strategic view of the need to deal with tax avoidance.
The Labour Government have said that tax avoidance stands at the top of their priorities in their plans to reform the tax system. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer made that clear in his pre-Budget statement. He said, rightly, that tax avoidance harms those who pay their fair share of taxes.
There are various ways to deal with tax avoidance. The previous Government were fortunate because in the 1970s and 1980s the courts had taken a purposive view of tax legislation. In a number of decisions, in particular the Ramsay and the Furniss decisions, which were confirmed last year in the McGurkian decision, the courts said that they would not adopt a literal approach, and that they would look at a preordained series of transactions in accordance with their overall effect. If, for example, a trust were interposed, they would look at the overall effect of the interposition of a trust in a series of transactions and act accordingly.
To a considerable extent, therefore, the attitude of the courts saved the previous Government from a huge haemorrhage in the public finances. The present

Government have taken a much more strategic approach to the issue. First, as announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, a large number of specific anti-avoidance measures will be introduced. I understand that up to 200 specific changes may be made to deal with tax avoidance.

Mr. Nick Gibb: Will the hon. Gentleman inform the House where he got the information about the next Budget that he has just announced to the House?

Mr. Cranston: I shall speak to the hon. Gentleman later about the specific measures contemplated.
Secondly, there have been changes in the administration. As the hon. Gentleman will know, the large business tax avoidance units have been centralised to target resources more effectively. In addition, the Inland Revenue has adopted a higher profile in dealing with tax avoidance. For example, there were well-publicised raids last year, when the Inland Revenue took advantage of its powers under the Taxes Management Act 1970.
Thirdly, the Government have initiated procedures to deal with multinational enterprises, in particular the transfer pricing regime. In the view of experts, the previous Government did not deal adequately with that regime. Our controls on transfer pricing lag behind those of other countries. Several consultation documents have been issued on the matter, and the Government will toughen up controls in the Finance Act later this year.
The Chancellor has initiated discussions on a general anti-avoidance provision. There has been a great debate about the matter. The right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border touched on it in his speech, but did not deal with it adequately. There is an active debate about whether the United Kingdom ought to have a general anti-avoidance provision. The distinguished Tax Law Review Committee concluded, contrary to what the right hon. Gentleman suggested, that there is a need for a general anti-avoidance provision. The advantage, of course, is that it sends a message to taxpayers that they must not design their arrangements to avoid tax, which is intended to be caught by the legislation.
Contrary to what the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border suggested, there is a head of steam behind this general anti-avoidance provision, which I support. It will ensure a more strategic approach to dealing with tax avoidance.
The Government have adopted a series of provisions to deal with the problem systematically, dealing with both specific and general matters. I support those measures. This is a serious topic. It was not dealt with seriously by the right hon. Gentleman. I commend the steps that the Government have taken.

Mr. John Burnett: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Cranston: I have finished.

Mr. Burnett: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He listed the scrutiny that the Government are giving to tax-avoidance measures. If the Paymaster General himself is the beneficiary of what is considered to be an


extremely lucrative tax-avoidance measure, how can he take part in those discussions and examinations without being the subject of a glaring conflict of interest?

Mr. Cranston: My hon. Friend is one among a number of Ministers. These decisions are being made by the Government. The Government have made their commitment to deal with tax avoidance quite clear and have set out their proposals in a series of consultation documents. Obviously, right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition Benches have not looked at those papers. The Government are dealing with the matter in a serious manner, and I support them full.

Mr. Keith Simpson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Cranston: I have finished.

Mr. Simpson: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. The hon. Member for Dudley, North (Mr. Cranston) has truly finished.

Dr. Vincent Cable: I came along to the debate imagining, perhaps rather naively, that we would debate tax avoidance. Instead, we have had a Hetty Wainthropp-type amateur sleuth exercise into the private finances of the Paymaster General.

Mr. Ian Bruce: The hon. Gentleman will always have the support of the Liberal Democrats. They will look after him. Do not worry.

Dr. Cable: On this particular point, they do.
I ask a question that has persisted throughout the debate: why on earth was this matter not dealt with earlier? We were given the explanation that it was raised in the 1991 Budget, but we have had 18 years, several Chancellors and numerous Budgets in which to investigate avoidance. Why was not this loophole, which was so obvious to the Paymaster General and to numerous business men, detected? The reason was either incompetence or deliberate oversight—perhaps it was deliberate cynicism.

Mr. Bruce: If the hon. Gentleman had been listening to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean), he would have heard clearly that the accusation was not one of using a loophole, and avoidance, but one of evasion.

Dr. Cable: The hon. Gentleman slipped from the word avoidance to evasion, and that is a crucial step in the argument, with which even public opinion and commentators outside have not caught up. Evasion is, of course, a legal matter. Perhaps I can return to the central issue.
We believe that tax avoidance is an important political issue. One reason why the Government were elected, and why we support their efforts in this respect, was to

take a much tougher, less cynical approach to the whole issue of tax avoidance. As I understand it, the Treasury has a strong policy on tax avoidance, which was emphasised this morning with the announcement of the investigation into the conduct of the Channel Islands. We support the broad policy.

Mr. Gibb: Will the hon. Gentleman state what anti-avoidance trust measures were included in the Government's July Budget, if they are so keen on the issue?

Dr. Cable: We are waiting for the Budget in a few weeks' time to take action on that. Liberal Democrats, like Conservative Members, will be looking for tough action in that respect.
Let me return to the central issue, which is important. We are looking to the Government to take the tough anti-avoidance action that they promised. This issue is important not because of revenue raising, which is a red herring, but because of the cynicism of the public about tax payments. I give a simple example. There is a trading group known as LETS—local exchange trading schemes—in my constituency: people who carry out and exchange services for each other. They do not pay cash. Some baby-sit; others carry out car repairs. Those people are frightened of expanding their scheme because the Inland Revenue will descend on them for tax avoidance. That is why public credibility has to be restored and tax avoidance dealt with firmly. I share some of the concerns of Conservative Members about the Paymaster General, not because he has been behaving improperly—that is a matter for investigation—but because Treasury Ministers should set an example. That is the issue.
On the specific issue of the Paymaster General, in the run-up to the Budget, it is clearly difficult, if not impossible, for him to continue to work on the sensitive issue of tax avoidance. The timing of the Budget is crucial, and within it must be measures to eliminate that loophole. If not, the position of the Paymaster General and the Government will become impossible.

Liz Blackman: This is the season of the pantomime dame, and Opposition Members' protestations have been perfectly in keeping with the time of year. My hon. Friend the Paymaster General answered the charges laid before Parliament. Sir Gordon Downey answered those charges and found that no parliamentary rule on registration had been broken.
Like so many other hon. Members, I came here this morning in the hope that I would hear a sensible debate about tax avoidance, but that has been far from the case. It could have been such a useful opportunity to explore sensibly the measures that the Government could take on tax avoidance, to bring in extra revenue for the Exchequer. I make the distinction, like the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable), between evasion, which is illegal, and avoidance, which is legal until ruled otherwise. It is, as Opposition Members have said, perfectly proper to structure business affairs in a way that minimises tax liability. Indeed, a whole industry has grown up to support that practice, and many hon. Members seek its advice. However, it is also the Government's duty to ensure fairness in the tax system


and to ensure that their tax intentions are translated into revenue for the Exchequer, for the proper funding of public services.
The Labour Government have clearly signalled their intention to act on tax avoidance. The Budget has signalled our intention to do just that, and future plans include a wide-ranging review of tax avoidance, involving the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise. We are considering setting up a general anti-avoidance rule—avoidance is banned in many countries—which is welcomed by many, including the Institute for Fiscal Studies. We are serious about tackling avoidance and evasion. The record shows that the Opposition are not.

Mr. Gibb: Will the hon. Lady give way?

Liz Blackman: No, I have nearly finished.

Mr. Gibb: rose—

Liz Blackman: No, I shall not give way. Opposition Members were on their feet for a long time.
Have not the Opposition come along to deflect attention from their own shameful record? Will not the proof of the pudding be in the eating, as to whether they support measures on tax avoidance when they come before the House?

Ms Jenny Jones: The right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) made an extremely important remark when he said that this was a timely debate. He is right, not only for the reasons that he gave but for an additional one, with which I want to deal now.
Tax avoidance could be argued to be an anomalous feature of an increasingly complex tax system. It may be lawful, but the issue is whether it is fair. When the public who vote us into this place consider the intricacies of tax avoidance and the way in which tax havens are used lawfully to avoid tax, they rapidly discover that that particular device is available for only the wealthy few. Most British taxpayers cannot avail themselves of that particular mechanism, so it is intrinsically unfair.
When my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced that the Inland Revenue would conduct a comprehensive review of tax avoidance, including tax havens, he was right. Many British people show varying degrees of enthusiasm for paying their taxes, but everyone accepts that public services, of which we all avail ourselves, have to be paid for somehow. Nevertheless, many people do not like to be parted from their hard-earned savings, so we must devise a tax system that is basically fair, equitable and transparent.
The right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border somewhat humorously took us through the intricacies of the Paymaster General's offshore trust, but he lost me halfway through. I have no experience of tax havens and I never will, but if he lost me, he will certainly have lost most of the public who were listening to him. He gave an admirable demonstration of the complexity of taxation law, which tax accountants earn an enormous amount of money trying to make work. That simply cannot be understood by the public.
While researching the subject last night, I found an article in the Financial Times in July 1997 congratulating the Chancellor on taking on a comprehensive review of tax avoidance, saying that it was a "sorely underdebated topic". Seeing the subject on the Order Paper today, I rather hoped that we would have a more comprehensive debate, but, understandably, the Conservative party wants to concentrate on a certain issue.
Last night, I also did some research in our excellent Library on the Conservative party's record on tax avoidance. In 1991, Norman Lamont took the significant step of introducing capital gains tax for offshore trusts. But that is about it—one significant change in 18 years. The Conservative party cannot lecture us about tax avoidance and the comprehensive review of tax avoidance law.

Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory: It has become obvious that we are not simply talking about tax avoidance this morning; we are also talking about how this morally superior new Labour Government are avoiding the truth. Until we have some straight answers to the questions posed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean), we shall continue to assert that they are covering up the truth and have something serious to hide.
This debate is about how a serving Minister of the Crown in the Treasury has a glaring and continuing conflict of interest between his public duties and his private interest, and how he is avoiding tax on a colossal scale. That has not been resolved by yesterday's statement by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. That was a House of Commons matter and he goes out of his way to say that he has no jurisdiction over the Paymaster General in his duty as a Minister of the Crown. That latter issue is what we are debating this morning.
The Paymaster General's solicitor has issued a misleading and false statement which, because it was issued by press release from the Treasury, has the status of a Treasury and Government document and has been referred to in parliamentary answers. Therefore, the Government are also associated with that misleading statement.
It is a pity that the Paymaster General is not here to answer the debate, but it is always nice to have the Financial Secretary, who herself is no stranger to not paying her taxes. The House knows that in 1989 she pledged that she would not pay the poll tax. She has also been associated with the peace tax campaign, which persuaded people not to pay that part of their tax which would go to defence expenditure. Therefore, we have two Treasury Ministers, one who would not pay her tax because of what she called her socialist conscience, and the other who will not pay his tax because he has an offshore trust. No doubt the Paymaster General will read what we have to say and come to the House in due course to resign.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister attempt to hide behind the separate defence that the matter was all settled a long time ago when the permanent secretary to the Treasury, Sir Terry Burns, cleared the Paymaster General and said that there was no conflict of interest. That is false and it is also a fiction, as I shall touch on in a minute. But first I return briefly


to the charge of hypocrisy: the huge and growing gap between what the Labour party in opposition said it would do and what it now does in government.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border, in his powerful and able speech, mentioned the Labour party document, "Tackling Tax Abuses". It could hardly be clearer. It is utterly explicit. It promises
to take action against the persistent few who, at the expense of everyone else, shelter their wealth overseas".
That was backed up by the Chancellor at the last Labour party conference before the election, when he said:
A Labour Chancellor will not permit tax reliefs to millionaires in offshore tax havens.
He is the Chancellor now, the Paymaster General is a millionaire, and Guernsey is an offshore tax haven, so why is the Chancellor permitting it? The answer is that they were all words before the election and the Paymaster General is no ordinary millionaire; he is a new Labour millionaire and a Minister.

Mr. Cranston: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: The hon. Gentleman has already spoken, and I shall touch on some of what he said.
Now that the Labour party is in a position to deliver on that windy rhetoric, it has done nothing except set up a review. The hon. Gentleman referred to some 200 measures planned by the Treasury. We shall be asking where that information comes from, because if it is another leak from the Treasury, about which the rest of us have not been told, that will also be the subject of an inquiry.
The hon. Gentleman and the hon. Members for Erewash (Liz Blackman) and for Wolverhampton, South-West (Ms Jones) were wrong about the previous Conservative Government and the one before that. We used every Finance Act to block up unjustified tax avoidance loopholes. My right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border gave examples of that. I do not think that those three Labour Members were in the House during those years, so they clearly know nothing about it.
We have nothing in principle against offshore trusts. We do not declare unrestricted warfare against overseas trusts in the way that the Labour party has. That would be stupid, unrealistic and wrong. However, we do take action when the wishes of the House of Commons are being circumvented, and we did so.
Contrast that with what the new Labour Government are doing. They are attacking not the big offshore fat cats, such as the Paymaster General, but the little man, the small savers. They used their first Budget last July, within weeks of taking office, to conduct a £5 billion raid on ordinary pension funds. It was the Paymaster General who announced the abolition of the most popular and successful savings vehicles of all time—TESSAs and PEPs. A £50,000 limit is good enough for small savers, but, meanwhile, those big offshore trusts about which we heard so much before the election are so far untouched. That is not because the Treasury does not know about the subject. The Paymaster General knows all about offshore trusts. There is a clear, continuing and glaring conflict between his private interests and his public duties.
Yesterday's report by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards observes that the existence of the Orion trust
might 'reasonably be thought by others' to be a source of potential influence.
That is the situation that paragraph 109 of the separate code of conduct for Ministers warns against. It says:
Where there is any doubt it will almost always be better to relinquish or dispose of the interest but Ministers should submit any such case to the Prime Minister for his decision.
The Paymaster General has not relinquished or disposed of his interest, as required by the code. He did not submit it to the Prime Minister for his decision. He has broken the ministerial code and should now resign.
There is another charge. Again, it was ably described by my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border, so I shall merely summarise the facts rather than going into great detail. We have not been told the truth. The Paymaster General has a family trust in Guernsey. His family are the sole beneficiaries. It is called the Orion trust, but we now know that that is a short title for the Robinson Family No. 1 and No. 2 trust. We were not told that at the start, but the information has subsequently come out. The trust was founded in 1996 with money from the mysterious and generous Madame Bourgeois. Of course, she did not set up the trust, because she had died two years before. Her executors set it up. One of her executors was the Paymaster General.
The purpose of the trust in Guernsey is simple—to avoid tax. There is no other reason for setting up a family trust in Guernsey. To succeed in avoiding United Kingdom taxation, the trustees, who are professional appointees doing what they are told, have to be seen to be entirely independent. They are not. The Paymaster General has said—and we believe him—that he suggests investments to them from time to time, and they act on those suggestions. He suggested that they bought 12 million shares in his company, TransTec—and they did. He suggested that they bought the shares that he wanted in Coventry City football club—and they did. If that is not influence, what is?
That is why the link between the Paymaster General and his family trust is under investigation by the special compliance unit of the Inland Revenue. That is an awkward position for a Treasury Minister. How can the Inland Revenue do its job properly when the object of its investigation is serving in the Department to which it reports?
The Treasury made the problem a great deal worse in its press release dated 8 December 1997, which included the solicitor's letter asserting that the trustees of the Orion trust
are not controlled, or their decisions influenced, by him in any way".
That is not what the Paymaster General is now saying. That statement, issued on Treasury notepaper, is clearly untrue. A misleading statement from a Government Department must be corrected. We expect the Financial Secretary to correct it.
The Paymaster General threatened to sue the newspapers for making similar revelations. They have not retracted their statements. He did not sue. That was another bluff.
The Government's final throw is to claim that the issue does not matter, because it was all settled in a discussion between the Paymaster General and Sir Terry Burns.


It was not. Sir Terry Burns was not told about the link between the Orion trust and the Paymaster General. He was not told that it buys shares on the Paymaster General's suggestion. My right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor is awaiting a further letter from Sir Terry Burns to clear that up. In the meantime, perhaps the Financial Secretary will admit the truth about that interview.
In any case, as the ministerial code makes clear:
It is in the end for Ministers to judge (subject to the Prime Minister's decision in cases of doubt) what action they need to take".
The Government should stop hiding behind civil servants and face the fact that the Paymaster General broke the rules. He did not break the rules of the House—we are not asking him to resign as a Member of Parliament—but the ministerial code, which applies to all Ministers of the Crown. That is why he has to resign.
I am leaving the Financial Secretary plenty of time to answer the debate. If she has an alternative explanation, let us finally have a full disclosure of it. The Government have recently published a White Paper called, "Your Right to Know". It has the usual photograph of the Prime Minister and so on. The foreword says:
Openness is fundamental to the political health of a modern state.
I agree with that. If the White Paper is not to be yet another piece of breathless hypocrisy from the Government, let them deliver on their fine aspirations. Let us have a full disclosure of all the facts from the Financial Secretary now, a full admission of the hypocrisy, a full description of the conflict of interest—which undoubtedly exists and continues—and an admission that there is a central falsehood; a difference between what the Paymaster General is saying and what the Treasury press release of 8 December last year said. Finally, let us all agree that the issue can be settled only by the Paymaster General's immediate resignation from office.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Dawn Primarolo): This was supposed to be a debate on tax avoidance and offshore trusts. The right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) spent five minutes on tax avoidance and loopholes and 35 minutes restating the innuendo and the points that the Conservatives have already made against my hon. Friend the Paymaster General. The Opposition cannot stomach the fact that they made a complaint to Sir Gordon Downey—the complaint that they have outlined again this morning—and the report says:
We agree that there is no case for saying that Mr. Robinson breached the rules of the House.
No case—and yet still they persist with their allegations.
Then they make snide comments and direct us away from the debate by making points against other Ministers. I am surprised that the Conservatives want to bring up the poll tax again. I am happy for them to remind the country that they introduced that unfair tax, they wasted £14 billion and they had to change the legislation. They do not want scrutiny of that.
As the Minister responsible, I am replying to a debate on tax avoidance. [Interruption.] Conservative Members can laugh and ridicule as much as they like. The facts stand for themselves—let us move away from the

innuendo. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, North (Mr. Cranston) has said, the general anti-avoidance regulations, on which the Tax Law Review Committee has published an excellent report, could have stood some debate from Conservative Members—but they did not want to know. As the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) said, there are important discussions to be held about the difference between loopholes and evasions—something which the Conservatives do not apparently appreciate as they slip into continual allegations. As my hon. Friends the Members for Erewash (Liz Blackman) and for Wolverhampton, South-West (Ms Jones) have made clear, the Government are pursuing a coherent policy in this regard. It is quite simple: the official Opposition do not have a policy. They want to keep making personal attacks instead of dealing with the issues.

Dr. Julian Lewis: Will the Financial Secretary give way?

Dawn Primarolo: I shall finish this point, and then give way to the hon. Gentleman. It is encouraging that some Conservative Members have a new-found interest in tax loopholes, but it is regrettable that they did not take action to deal with them when they were in government. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will explain why.

Dr. Lewis: The hon. Lady's line of defence seems to be that the Government are against tax avoidance in general, but in favour of it in this case.

Dawn Primarolo: I have not started the line of defence yet; I have not started explaining all the action that the Government has taken to counter tax loopholes.
This debate, secured by the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border, a former Conservative Minister, has initiated discussion of the Government's policies, how they have been implemented to tackle tax avoidance, and how we shall meet our manifesto commitments to close tax loopholes, as the hon. Member for Twickenham said. The debate allows me to set out what the Government have already done to root out tax loopholes, to explain why we have had to act as a result of the Conservatives' failure over 18 years, and to signal the direction in which the Government intend to go.

Mr. Maclean: It is very courteous of the hon. Lady to give way. I understand that she will wish to do so rather than try to answer the questions that I have put to the Paymaster General. May I ask her for her personal opinion? She has furiously defended her role concerning the poll tax, and I admire her for saying so. Does she personally agree with the Deputy Prime Minister, when he said on "Breakfast with Frost":
You may argue that the politician has said one thing and perhaps done another"?
Does she share that view?

Dawn Primarolo: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with the chairman of the Conservative party, when he said on television:
I'm sure that Geoffrey hasn't done anything illegal"?


Perhaps Conservatives should make up their minds about the allegations. One Conservative Member has accused the Paymaster General of evasion. Evasion is illegal.

Mr. Ian Bruce: indicated assent.

Dawn Primarolo: The hon. Gentleman confirms it. He must substantiate it outside the Chamber and not seek protection in order to make an allegation without supplying the truth.

Mr. Bruce: The hon. Lady knows that I said that that charge had been made against the Paymaster General. Does she agree that, since we understand that he is being investigated by the Inland Revenue, he should resign from his job because, effectively, he is being investigated by his own Department?

Dawn Primarolo: I caution the hon. Gentleman on two points. First, he should look up the difference between avoidance and evasion to ensure that he understands the seriousness of his allegation. Secondly, the allegation that the Inland Revenue is investigating the matter was made in the same newspaper article in which it was said that the Paymaster General had offshore trusts in Bermuda. Opposition Members should not believe everything that they read in the press. They should base their allegations on fact.

Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: rose—

Dawn Primarolo: I shall give way in a moment.
This debate is about Government policy. Conservative Members do not want to hear about Government policy because they know that they do not have a leg to stand on. I shall get it on the record.

Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: rose—

Dawn Primarolo: I shall not give way at this stage. I shall give way to the right hon. Gentleman before I conclude my remarks.
In July, we took action in a series of significant areas where we found exploitation of tax loopholes. In the Budget, we ended abuses of corporation tax, value added tax and the pay-as-you-earn scheme. That action will raise £1.5 billion over five years and relates to points that hon. Members have made about the importance of the security and integrity of the tax system.
Dividends on shares which are trading assets are now treated as part of the holder's trading profits. That will yield £500 million up to April 2001. Conservatives did not do anything about that when they were in government. They are telling us today that they are committed to such action, but they did not do anything about it. They were too busy trying to explain why their colleagues were taking cash for questions to look properly at the tax system.
On acceleration of capital allowances, finance lessors can no longer use subsidiaries to gain advantage. New rules counter arrangements under which unused past allowances were transferred to the lessor through a sale

and leaseback, as was so under the previous Government. They did nothing about it, yet they now tell us that they have a new-found commitment to root out tax loopholes. I am glad that they are late converts. Perhaps we shall see much more committed support of the Government's policy.
Provisions on company purchase schemes counter certain company tax avoidance schemes where a company's owners sell the company to avoid paying accrued or anticipated corporation tax liabilities. That will yield £300 million before 2001. Conservatives did not do anything about that. They did not think that it was important. They were not committed then to rooting out tax loopholes, but, apparently, they are now.
The Government have moved on PAYE avoidance.

Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: rose—

Dawn Primarolo: I shall finish this point and then give way.
The Government have already acted on second-hand goods margin schemes, cash accounting schemes, capital goods schemes and scope of insurance premium tax, in their first Budget, and are now developing their policy.

Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: Will the Financial Secretary answer just one of the questions that we put to her, rather than trying to answer the questions that she would have liked to be asked? She has referred to our statement that the Paymaster General is under investigation by the Inland Revenue because of his link with his family trust in Guernsey. She obviously knows—because she has made reference to it—whether that is so. Will she tell the House whether the Paymaster General is being investigated? If he is, he must resign immediately. If he is not, will she assert that beyond doubt?

Dawn Primarolo: The right hon. Gentleman knows that he is merely repeating press speculation. That is typical of Conservative Members' innuendo and allegations. They are interested only in smears.
I have described what the Government have done so far, but I want to talk about the work that we are developing. The Inland Revenue has been carrying out a wide-ranging review of tax loopholes, to which the hon. Member for Twickenham referred.

Mr. Burnett: Will the hon. Lady give way?

Dawn Primarolo: I am short of time; I cannot give way.
Action in several such tax areas will be announced in the Budget. Customs and Excise are also re-examining and improving its procedures for finding, reporting, preventing and countering tax loopholes. We are also looking at the question of general anti-avoidance regulations, and draft regulations on this important issue will be published this year for consultation.
The Government have already said—most recently, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said so in the House last week—that the present tax treatment of offshore trusts is being considered in a wide-ranging review of areas of tax, as the Chancellor announced in his Budget statement. Hon. Members will recall that a number of steps were


taken in 1991 to deal with such issues. They were inadequate, delayed matters and did not work properly. It is regrettable, but that is the case. The Conservatives cannot wear the badge of honour as the party that reduces tax loopholes. They have never done that and they are not committed to it.
The Government are committed to detecting loopholes, to deterring people and to preventing them from using loopholes. Tax rates in the United Kingdom are now low in comparison with those in many other countries, and by curbing tax leakage we shall help to keep them that way.
Conservative Members do not want to engage in a proper debate about tax avoidance. They name a debate and then use it to smear. I hope that the next time they choose such a debate, they come here with information about what is possible, with a better understanding of their appalling record and with more support for the Government's action to close tax loopholes.

Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

Mr. Fraser Kemp: I thank the House and Madam Speaker for giving me permission to introduce a debate on a crucial issue—carbon monoxide poisoning. There is probably no Member of the House who will not at some time in his or her parliamentary career have a constituency case involving a needless and tragic death resulting from that insidious form of poisoning. Carbon monoxide is often referred to as the silent killer because it is a poison which is tasteless and odourless. It is the evil killer of a huge number of people every year.
As with many such debates, I raise the issue in the House because a young girl from my constituency, Anne Brennan, who was 20, died of carbon monoxide poisoning in rented accommodation two years ago while studying at Durham university. Another constituent who lived in Washington, Glen Halliday, also died of carbon monoxide poisoning five years ago.
I had the privilege of meeting the parents of Anne Brennan recently, and spoke to them yesterday to talk about the issue and about my raising my concerns in the House. I beg the indulgence of the House while I read from a letter they sent me, and I ask the House to listen carefully:
We were obviously saddened and devastated by the death of our daughter Anne. She was a gifted girl who had vitality and a great love of life, she was a talented singer and artist, she helped underprivileged children
in the north-east. Apparently her real ambition, declared in writing, was to become a Member of Parliament.
The letter continues:
We know nothing can replace Anne and our lives were torn apart with her passing. What we are determined to do is help prevent other families having to suffer a similar loss. We urge the government to do anything it can to ensure her death was not in vain.
Although Anne's parents have had to cope with that tragedy, they still want to see some good come out of it, so that she will not have died in vain.
I must tell the Minister that I realise that there are no easy answers and no quick fixes. None the less, we must realise that there is a real problem. The CO-Gas Safety charity, to whose work I pay tribute, estimates that, between September 1995 and November 1997, about 134 deaths resulted from carbon monoxide poisoning, as well as about 800 near misses.
I ask the Minister to bear in mind the following points when she responds, because, although there are no easy answers, there are a number of points that the various Departments could take on board.
The first important point is about individual responsibility and increasing awareness. We must ensure that people are aware how carbon monoxide poisoning can occur, and that they check ventilation systems and ensure that gas appliances, in particular, are checked regularly so that their users are not put in danger.
The blame does not lie with gas appliances alone. Carbon monoxide poisoning can also be caused by fossil fuels. Coal-burning and wood stoves can often result in that form of poisoning. Publicity and trying to make people aware of the facts are therefore important. We must also consider the resources available through


the Health and Safety Executive, and ensure that it has the necessary back-up to investigate solutions to the problem.
Following the denationalisation of British Gas, the position of that company and of Transco should be examined, and the major gas companies need to exercise greater responsibility. All gas users pay a standing charge of £32.92 a year, and a small proportion of that could go towards trying to solve the problem.
I am reliably informed by the carbon monoxide safety campaign that Transco, one of the British Gas businesses, has no equipment for tracing carbon monoxide. That is a bit like asking someone to investigate radioactivity without supplying a Geiger counter. We need to think about the support that gas companies have.
Another problem is that a company's representatives will turn up and say that they have solved the problem by turning off the gas, whereas many carbon monoxide poisoning deaths occur through leakages from nearby houses and flats. The gas companies must exercise greater responsibility.
Landlords should be licensed to ensure that they fulfil their statutory responsibility to see that appliances are checked by a registered Confederation of Registered Gas Installers company. That would improve safety. It is worth pointing out that in this country even dog kennels are licensed; landlords should be, too.
People should consider installing detectors, because if about £30 had been spent, my constituent need not have died. For £30, one can buy an audible alarm that also switches off the gas supply in the house; greater emphasis should be placed on that. We should talk to manufacturers, house builders and local authorities about the possibility of installing detectors. That would go a long way towards saving people's lives.
Public health is an important area, because of the role of the medical profession. The symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning are often similar to those of flu, so when people go to the doctor the symptoms are often misinterpreted. The medical profession needs to think about the ways in which doctors and others who work in accident and emergency departments can be trained to identify the symptoms. One great danger is that if symptoms are misinterpreted and diagnosed as flu, the advice is often to go home, wrap up warm, close the windows and keep the heating on—which, by definition, is exactly the wrong thing to do if there is a leakage of carbon monoxide.
I congratulate the Minister for Public Health, although she is not the Minister who is to reply to the debate, because she has met campaigners and looked into the issues.
Penalties, too, are important. The installer, if I can dignify him with that name, who installed the appliances in the flat in which Anne Brennan lived, was fined £4,000. That is not a sufficient punishment for the British legal system to give for an action that resulted in the death of a young girl.
I ask the Under-Secretary of State to pass on to the Home Secretary my suggestion that we reconsider the penalties involved. They should fit the crime, and in many cases a charge of manslaughter should be

considered by the Crown Prosecution Service and other legal authorities. Such crimes are serious, and must be thought about.

Mr. Kevin McNamara: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Health and Safety Executive needs to be far more vigorous in following up incidents? In many more cases, a charge of involuntary manslaughter, or even voluntary manslaughter when there is negligence, should be used. There should be better co-operation between the police and the HSE, so that what happened when one of my constituents died does not happen any more. Only when the coroner was forced to bring in a verdict of manslaughter was a criminal case brought—and even then the landlord got away with autrefois convict.

Mr. Kemp: I agree that co-operation between the authorities is important. The judge at the trial following Anne Brennan's death said at the end that those involved were lucky to get away without facing a charge of manslaughter. I agree, and I believe that the Crown Prosecution Service and other legal authorities should be vigorous in ensuring that the full weight of the law comes down on such people. That is the one way in which we will make people sit up and listen, including dodgy landlords who take large amounts of money from, in particular, students and other young people.
Carbon monoxide poisoning, however, does not affect only young people. It is no respecter of status, class or sex. We must be rigorous. We must send out the message that those who do not accept the statutory responsibilities that the House has laid down in the past will experience the full weight of the law, and that if gas appliances, in particular, are not regularly checked, they will face manslaughter charges. People are dying at a rate of about one a week. As I said at the beginning of my speech, I suspect that every hon. Member will, at some point in his or her parliamentary career, have to meet the parents of a constituent who has died from carbon monoxide poisoning—as I had to meet the parents of a young and talented girl who had died from it. Penalties, then, are important.
What are the answers? I have raised the issue of public health, and the need to ensure that members of the medical profession are aware of the problem. I have also mentioned the licensing of landlords, and the responsibility that should rest with the major gas companies. I do not believe that those gas companies have fulfilled their responsibility as well as they should have in recent years. Talking to householders and manufacturers is also important. The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions who is present today, but I am sure she will agree that this subject is also covered by the Home Office and the Department of Health. There should be more co-ordination between those Departments: they should sit down together, along with members of the carbon monoxide safety campaign, to find a sensible way of ending the problem, and they should take advice.
I am not going to stand here and say that we can solve the problem completely. Inevitably and tragically, there will always be deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning. I believe, however, that we can reduce the number of deaths—that there need not be roughly one death a week


as a result of this insidious form of poisoning. People go off to sleep, and that is it: lives are ruined, and families experience tragedies.
I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to take what action she can, especially to improve public awareness. We can produce legislation, and legislation is critically important to ensuring that landlords and others fulfil the responsibilities laid down by the House; but it is also necessary for individuals to be aware of problems caused by, for instance, blocked flues, and to ensure that appliances are checked regularly.

Mr. McNamara: That is the landlord's responsibility. Most of the cases that I have encountered have been due to the negligence of landlords, who have stated incorrectly—in fact, they have lied—that their appliances have been inspected.

Mr. Kemp: I agree. Knowing that we were to have this debate, a neighbour in my constituency—I was at school with him—telephoned me. He is a CORGI installer. He told me that it was possible for people to obtain certificates fraudulently, and to put them on appliances.
My hon. Friend is right. The tragedy is that such deaths tend to occur in rented accommodation. They can happen anywhere, and we need to ensure that people know that, and that detectors are available; but the fact is that landlords letting cheap accommodation, and often ripping people off, are not prepared to fulfil their responsibility. We should send out a clear message that we will not tolerate the present position, in which vulnerable people—many of whom must rely on rented accommodation, because no other option is available—die of carbon monoxide poisoning every year, or suffer the consequences of such deaths.
I thank the House for giving me the opportunity to speak. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister will say that there are no easy answers, but I feel strongly that we need co-ordination and tough legislation, and that we must make people—especially those in rented accommodation—aware of the dangers. I urge my hon. Friend to respond to all my points, but, in particular, to my point about the need to convey publicity and information about the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Angela Eagle): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington, East (Mr. Kemp) on securing the debate, and on bringing this important public safety issue before the House. In the time available, I will try to answer his concerns; if I am unable to do justice to all of them, I will, of course, be happy to meet him or write to him to discuss any outstanding matters.
This is a sad debate, and I wish that we did not have to have it. Regrettably, however, carbon monoxide poisoning claims lives, and maims. My hon. Friend has mentioned the tragic cases in his constituency, and all hon. Members will want to join me in sending sympathy to families and friends who have lost loved ones from this needless cause.
I want to use this opportunity to emphasise the Government's commitment to reducing needless deaths and suffering. The Government—supported by the Health

and Safety Commission and its Executive—have taken, and will continue to take, action to reduce the incidence of gas-related carbon monoxide poisoning. As I shall explain, there is co-ordinated activity across Whitehall Departments to tackle carbon monoxide poisoning issues more widely. I am anxious to consolidate our strategy further, and hope soon to meet Ministers in other Departments to discuss it.
Gas can be inherently dangerous. If it can get out, it will; when it does, it has the potential to do massive damage, and to claim lives beyond those immediately close to the source of the leak. That is why there have been specific health and safety regulations covering the installation and use of gas appliances since 1972. They were originally introduced, and have since been updated regularly, to establish a stringent safety framework, essentially to ensure that domestic gas appliances are safely installed by competent people. A strong and effective legal framework is vitally important, given that more than 19 million homes in Great Britain use natural gas, which, over the years, has become the preferred fuel for heating and cooking.
Changes to the law have been made since 1994 to allay public concern about the number of deaths caused by gas-related carbon monoxide poisoning. My hon. Friend quoted the figure of 134 that had been given to him by Co-Gas Safety, along with the figure of 800 for near misses. We are aware of the cases in which deaths have been caused. The Co-Gas figures may include, for instance, suicides, and are not as reliable as our statistics. I am sure my hon. Friend will agree, however, that even one death from carbon monoxide poisoning is one too many.
As I have said, changes have been made. The rented sector has been a particular target, as about a third of all fatalities have occurred in it. I agree to an extent with what my hon. Friends the Members for Houghton and Washington, East and for Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) said about the private rented sector. We intend to concentrate particularly on that sector, but we must remember that two thirds of fatalities occur in the owner-occupied and social housing sectors.
In the private rented sector, certain landlords, including those who let property on short leases, are required to ensure that gas appliances that they provide for their tenants to use are safe and properly maintained—only by competent gas fitters. In addition, landlords are required to arrange annual safety checks of those gas appliances, including the flue, to keep a record of those checks and to provide a copy of the record for their tenants. A particular aim of the law is to protect vulnerable tenants at the cheaper end of the rented sector, such as students and young people in digs.
In owner-occupied property, anyone doing gas work—including home owners—must, by law, also be competent. Home owners, too, have been exhorted to get their gas appliances checked for safety once a year, and the Government have included in their publicity combustion appliances fuelled by means other than gas, which are equally capable of causing carbon monoxide poisoning. There has been much publicity in recent years on a full range of carbon monoxide poisoning issues, and we are taking new initiatives.
Any law is effective only if it is properly enforced, and the Health and Safety Commission and the HSE continue to give high priority to enforcing gas safety


provisions and prosecuting when serious breaches of the law occur and there is evidence to justify criminal proceedings. Breaching gas safety law is a criminal offence, so it is only right that those who flout the law and put the lives of others at risk should have the book thrown at them.
The HSE has achieved a good conviction rate of more than 80 per cent. in gas safety prosecutions. I am encouraged by recent signs that the average fine imposed by the courts for breaches of health and safety law has been increasing, but I think that there is a long, long way to go. It surely cannot be right that someone can be fined only about £2,500 for putting human life at risk—or, indeed, destroying it—by failing properly to observe health and safety law, including gas safety regulations.

Mr. McNamara: In the Murphy case in my constituency, of which my hon. Friend the Minister is aware, it was not until after the coroner's inquest that any action was taken by the police for manslaughter. That put my constituent at grave financial disadvantage, as he had to finance all his proceedings with no help whatever from the public purse, and we found that the police had no duty of public care in the matter. It is a matter of the emphasis that the police and the Health and Safety Executive are prepared to put on the issue. In this case, we found them most reluctant to prosecute.

Angela Eagle: The Health and Safety Executive has the duty to take prosecutions under safety law, but the Crown Prosecution Service decides whether manslaughter charges are justified. There are encouraging signs that the CPS is beginning to take the issue more seriously. Recently, there was finally a prosecution following a death by carbon monoxide poisoning that resulted in gaol sentences for both the installer and the landlord; but I have considerable sympathy with my hon. Friend's contention that that does not happen often enough.
The fines are too low. Too many employers and duty holders such as landlords see the derisory sums as a necessary business expense. To my mind, the present level of fines handed down by the courts does not act as a strong enough deterrent. I want the courts to impose punitive sanctions: punishments that fit the crimes committed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington, East said. We are taking up the matter with the Home Secretary and the Lord Chancellor.
Larger fines are, of course, not the only sanction: imprisonment, or the threat of it, must surely concentrate minds. The HSE refers appropriate cases to the Crown Prosecution Service when there has been a death, so that manslaughter charges can be considered. I welcomed the outcome of the recent prosecution in Stafford Crown court brought against a landlord and a gas fitter in the tragic case of Sonja Hyams, a student at Keele university, who died from gas-related carbon monoxide poisoning.
The prosecution resulted in custodial sentences of two years for the landlord and 15 months for the gas fitter. That is the first time that custodial sentences have been imposed for failure to ensure the safety of gas appliances in rented accommodation. Personally, I do not think that the sentences imposed were anywhere near long enough, but let them nevertheless serve as a lesson to those landlords and unregistered gas fitters who think that they can ignore the law.
Carbon monoxide poisoning has the potential to affect the lives of millions in this country, and national publicity about the dangers is important. Great efforts have been made to raise public awareness of this silent, invisible killer. I do not limit my remarks to the strides forward made by Government and Government agencies: I include pressure groups such as CO-Gas Safety and Carbon Monoxide Support, which do good work in raising awareness. I have met members of CO-Gas Safety, and I am very much looking forward to meeting Debbie Davis of Carbon Monoxide Support soon.
The Health and Safety Commission and the HSE have run several high-profile publicity campaigns about the dangers of gas-related carbon monoxide poisoning, including national television and press advertising, and direct mailing of publicity material to vulnerable groups such as students and to university accommodation officers, landlords, general practitioners and other health professionals. The message about the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning has also reached the 19 million gas consumers in Britain. The Department of Trade and Industry has also run campaigns focusing on the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning from all carbon-based fuels.
Independent research for the HSE has shown a significant increase in awareness among the public about the dangers of gas-related carbon monoxide poisoning, as a direct result of the publicity campaigns. I welcome the fact that the Health and Safety Commission's provisional figure for fatalities from gas-related carbon monoxide poisoning in 1996–97 has fallen to 21; previously, it averaged 30.
I should like to think that the legislation and publicity measures that I have described have been responsible for the welcome reduction in the number of fatalities, but there is no room for complacency and we must continue to hammer home the message about the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning.
It is tragic when anyone's life is cut short, but what makes deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning even more distressing is the fact that many can be prevented. The Government are determined to continue to keep the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning in the forefront of the public's mind. To that end, I have three important announcements to make this morning.
First, on gas-related carbon monoxide poisoning, the Health and Safety Commission and the HSE are renewing their publicity, advertising the dangers in the regional press so as to target attention in parts of the country where the greatest risk occurs. The publicity also continues to promote the HSE's gas safety advice line, which has been operating for four years and deals with about 50 to 100 calls a day.
Secondly, my Department is today publishing a new advice leaflet about the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning from all forms of combustion appliance. The leaflet stresses the need for all forms of combustion appliance, such as coal and oil fires, to be properly installed only by competent engineers, and for regular maintenance and safety checks. It has been produced in close co-operation with the Departments of Trade and Industry and of Health.
Thirdly, the Department of Trade and Industry, in conjunction with gas suppliers, is about to mail 19 million domestic customers again with a leaflet about carbon monoxide dangers.
This is a co-ordinated attack by the Government on carbon monoxide poisoning caused by whatever fuel source; I urge the public to heed our warnings. A central message is that carbon monoxide poisoning—the silent, invisible killer—does not respect age or housing type; nor, indeed, does it respect fuel type. Anyone—and I mean anyone—can be affected.
There are a number of simple steps that consumers can take to protect themselves, and our publicity makes those clear: ensure that gas and other solid fuel appliances and flues are installed and maintained only by competent people; get flues and chimneys swept regularly, ideally annually; and always ensure that rooms are adequately ventilated.
The gas suppliers are supporting this attack, but the industry at large has a bigger role to play. The Government and the HSE have paid out a massive amount of taxpayers' money to provide national publicity on carbon monoxide poisoning. We do not have endless funds, and it is not the Government who create the risk, so I hope that those operating in the liberalised gas market will play a fuller part in promoting gas as a safe fuel for people to burn in their homes. I look forward to industry initiatives in that respect.
Causes of carbon monoxide poisoning can include poor installation of an appliance or shoddy maintenance work afterwards. There have been some complaints about lack of competence by CORGI-registered gas installers: some wide of the mark and some justified. I shall meet the chairman and director general of CORGI later this week to review its work.
To provide gas consumers with the assurance that they deserve, the HSE has required CORGI to introduce a new, nationally accredited certification scheme for individual gas-fitting operatives. The new scheme, which comes on stream this year, will require all gas fitters to be assessed against nationally agreed standards for competence in the areas of work that they propose to undertake, and they will be reassessed every five years.
The new scheme will promote consistency in standards of competence among gas fitters, and provide further reassurance to the public that the person who arrives at their home to carry out gas work is competent to do so.
My hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington, East mentioned the causes of gas-related carbon monoxide poisoning, and the HSE has established an industry working group to consider them. It includes industry representatives, and has made useful progress in identifying sources of information on such incidents. It is now exploring ways in which that information can best be used. Linked to that important work, I understand that British Gas Research and Technology has initiated an industrywide research project to consider a range of gas safety issues, including carbon monoxide poisoning. The HSE is actively supporting that project, and British Gas Research and Technology is working closely with the executive's group. I warmly welcome that initiative and believe that its outcome can be influential in securing a better understanding of the causes of gas-related carbon monoxide poisoning and the further preventive measures that can be considered.
I assure my hon. Friend and the House that the Government and the Health and Safety Commission will do all we can to reduce further the incidence of carbon monoxide poisoning. I hope that I have begun to give that assurance to my hon. Friend today.

HMP Maze

1 pm

Mr. Jeffrey Donaldson: I welcome the opportunity to raise the issue of recent incidents in the Maze prison in the House, and I thank Madam Speaker for affording me that opportunity. Recent weeks have seen a serious decline in public confidence in the Prison Service in Northern Ireland as a result of recent events at HMP Maze, which is in my constituency, as is Maghaberry prison. In 1997, we had at least three serious lapses of security at the Maze prison. The first was the discovery of an IRA escape tunnel in March; the second was the escape of the IRA prisoner, Liam Averill, in early December; and the third was the murder of the Loyalist Volunteer Force prisoner, Billy Wright, on 27 December. Those incidents represent serious breaches in security at the Maze prison.
Following the discovery of the IRA escape tunnel in March, a senior civil servant in the Northern Ireland Office, John Steele, was tasked to conduct an internal inquiry. He produced a report, but unfortunately it has never been published. The Minister must tell the House whether the recommendations of that report have been fully implemented and whether they were fully implemented before the escape of Liam Averill and the murder of Billy Wright. If not, why not? Will the Minister give a commitment to the House that the Steele report will be published so that public representatives can examine its recommendations?
Liam Averill was an IRA prisoner who effected his escape from the Maze prison during one of the Christmas parties held in December. I understand from sources in the prison, which have been corroborated by several other individuals, that the governor held discussions with the so-called officers commanding—OCs—of the paramilitary groupings in the prison. Those discussions concerned the arrangements for the Christmas parties. We have evidence of that in an interview with Liam Averill, published in Republican News after his escape. He said that, shortly before he made his escape, he was approached by a member of the IRA staff in the prison and asked if he wished to take part in an escape. He claimed:
I was told that a successful bid could be made through the Christmas parties for prisoners' children.
How did the IRA know in advance that such an escape could be effected at the Christmas parties, unless it was aware of the relaxation in security that would facilitate an escape?
There undoubtedly was a relaxation in security. None of the women and children who attended the parties was searched when entering the prison. No proper searches were carried out of the gifts that those people brought in for the prisoners. That is a significant breach of security, because it enabled individuals to enter the prison without being searched and facilitated Liam Averill's escape. The IRA knew in advance that that would be the case, or the escape would not have been attempted. How did the IRA know? Did the governor discuss those terms with the OCs of the paramilitary groupings? We need to know the truth about that. If the governor's decision to relax security facilitated the escape of that IRA prisoner, serious questions must be asked about his judgment.
I understand that search equipment—similar to that used in airports—which was installed in the Maze prison was not switched on and was not used by the staff.


What is the point of having such equipment if it is not used? How were two pistols, used in the subsequent murder of Billy Wright, smuggled into the Maze prison? The search procedures at the prison must be inadequate if pistols can be smuggled in. I also understand that the governor attended the Christmas party at which Liam Averill made good his escape. He therefore escaped under the nose of the governor himself.
In the circumstances surrounding the murder of Billy Wright on 27 December, one of the fundamental issues which must be addressed is the decision of the governor to place Irish National Liberation Army prisoners and LVF prisoners in the same block. Neither of those groups observes a ceasefire at present. They are both engaged in violence and it is extraordinary that the governor should decide to put those two factions together in the same block. Last night on BBC television, the governor confessed that that had been a naive decision. However, the governor's staff advised him against the decision and, at a governor's meeting, senior staff urged him not to proceed and to take steps to separate the two paramilitary groupings. They were a lethal cocktail and a serious incident was waiting to happen. I submit that the decision to house those prisoners in the same block was a major factor in facilitating the murder of Billy Wright. It was not naivety on the part of the governor: I suggest that it was incompetence. The governor, Mr. Mogg, has wide experience in prisons and has served in prisons in England. I cannot understand why someone with his experience and knowledge would take such a decision.
I also believe that the Minister knew of the situation before the murder of Billy Wright. We know that the Prison Officers Association raised the issue of INLA and LVF prisoners being housed in the same block at a meeting with the Minister, but no action was taken to rectify the situation. I hope that the Minister will be able to explain to the House why no action was taken by the governor or by him in the light of the concerns expressed by prison staff.
Last night on television, the governor said that he had talked to the LVF and INLA prisoners and accepted assurances from them that there would be no trouble. It is extraordinary that the governor of a prison should take assurances from prisoners and give them greater credence than the advice of his senior staff. The position of the governor of the Maze prison has become untenable. Given the serious situation which has developed in Northern Ireland, I submit that the governor has no alternative but to resign. If he has any integrity left, he will do so quickly.

Mr. Ken Maginnis: Does my hon. Friend agree that, despite his obvious culpability in this matter, the governor of the Maze prison was also subject to pressure from the Director of Security and the Director of Prisons? Should not their position be examined because they, too, are in an untenable position? The catalyst, which was the murder of Billy Wright, is now spreading throughout society and jeopardising the political process that we have all worked so hard to keep in place.

Mr. Donaldson: I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. There are two issues with regard to the involvement of the Northern Ireland Office in this sorry

affair. First, why is Governor Mogg only a part-time governor in the Maze? Why is he also a director of prison operations in the Northern Ireland Office? The Northern Ireland Office tells us repeatedly that the Maze is a special case because it is a high-security prison. Why did the Northern Ireland Office appoint a part-time governor to a high-security prison? Who took that decision and why?
Was the management of the Maze prison given political direction as part of the so-called confidence-building process? Was it told to relax security measures to create an air of confidence among the prisoners during the political process? Did political direction from the Northern Ireland Office contribute to the relaxation of security, which facilitated the escape of an IRA prisoner and the murder of Billy Wright?
May I deal with the events on the day of Billy Wright's murder? I have already asked how it was possible, given that the Maze is supposed to be a high-security prison, for the INLA to have smuggled two firearms into the prison, but that was not the first time the INLA had achieved such a feat. The same prisoners who murdered Billy Wright had already smuggled a firearm into Maghaberry prison some months earlier and used it to hold a hostage for several hours. The fact that those prisoners were then transferred to the Maze and were able to repeat the exercise raises serious questions about the prison management's competence and the security measures in place. I hope that the Minister can reassure us on those points.
Were the INLA and LVF prisoners given a copy of the visits rota on the morning of Billy Wright's murder? If not, how did the INLA prisoners know that Billy Wright would receive a visit that morning? I understand from Billy Wright's father, Mr. David Wright, that Billy Wright normally took visits not on Saturday mornings but on Saturday afternoons. Indeed, Billy Wright never had visits on Saturday mornings. Who decided that that visit should take place on a Saturday morning and why?
At about 9.30 on the morning of Billy Wright's murder, someone in the Maze prison ordered the prison officer manning the observation tower overlooking H block 6 to leave his post and report for other duties. That event was significant because the observation tower overlooks the scene where the murder took place. Had a prison officer been in the tower, he would have seen the INLA prisoners cutting the wire, making their way on to the roof and crossing over into the yard where Billy Wright was subsequently murdered. The fact that no prison officer was in the tower enabled the INLA prisoners to move undetected on to the roof and into that yard.
Who made the unprecedented decision to remove the prison officer from the observation tower and why? He would not normally have been removed from the observation tower, because that H block housed both INLA and LVF prisoners.

Mr. William Ross: My hon. Friend will not be aware that, during yesterday's proceedings of the Public Processions (Northern Ireland) Bill [Lords] in Standing Committee B, the Minister said that my allegation that Billy Wright was in an INLA part of the prison was fundamentally untrue. The Minister said that he was in a segregated wing of a separate block. In reality,


he was in another leg of the same H block, so the Minister appears not to know exactly where Mr. Wright and INLA prisoners were.

Mr. Donaldson: I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention.
Many serious questions must be answered about security and management at the Maze prison. The events surrounding Billy Wright's murder require a stringent inquiry. Many people in Northern Ireland wonder whether it was a series of coincidences and mishaps or pure incompetence on the part of prison staff, but many others suspect that there was collusion. If those suspicions are to be removed and public confidence restored, we need to know how Billy Wright was murdered and why there were serious breaches in security. Public confidence must be restored and the Minister has an uphill task to achieve that.
Those responsible for the prison management—the governor, the Director of Prisons in the Northern Ireland Office, the head of the Northern Ireland Prison Service and the Minister—must reflect on those matters. They must reflect on their judgments, particularly the decision to house INLA and LVF prisoners in the same block.

Mr. Andrew MacKay: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, the moment Mr. Wright was murdered, I called on behalf of my party for an urgent independent inquiry, which is the only way in which confidence will be restored? Does he share my concern that the distinguished public servant conducting the inquiry will not be regarded as totally independent because he is part of the Prison Service, the Home Office and the Northern Ireland Office? Would it not be helpful to have a further inquiry under a completely independent chairman and to publish its report in full? This is not a matter of seeking recriminations; we want to clean the slate, find out exactly what has gone wrong in the Maze and put it right. It does not necessarily matter whose fault it is. Many of us might be to blame, but we must ensure that it does not happen again and that prisoners are kept under a proper regime in the Maze.

Mr. Donaldson: I agree that we need a full independent public inquiry into the running of the Prison Service in Northern Ireland. Although I do not doubt the competence of those carrying out the in-house inquiry, there is a complete lack of public confidence in the inquiry. The Minister must deal with that.
The Minister must also say why the governor of the Maze is only part time. Should we not have a full-time governor rather than someone who wears both a policy and a management hat? We need to know the truth behind the escape of the IRA prisoner, Liam Averill. Why were the visitors to the Christmas party not searched? Who took those decisions and why? Most important, we need to know the truth behind the circumstances of Billy Wright's murder within the Maze.

Mr. Maginnis: Does my hon. Friend think that the incident will have great repercussions throughout the whole administration in Northern Ireland, given that the people who direct security policy in prisons are also the people who advise on the emergency provisions Acts, the Parades Commission and the Police (Northern Ireland)

Bill—the most flawed Bill ever to go to a Committee of the House? Is it not time that we took that issue on board when considering future security administration in Northern Ireland?

Mr. Donaldson: I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and hope that the Minister will note his remarks. I hope that the Minister can today allay many of the concerns felt by the people of Northern Ireland about the Prison Service, the competence of those who run the service and those in ministerial positions who have ultimate responsibility for prisons in Northern Ireland.

The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Adam Ingram): I congratulate the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson) on having obtained this Adjournment debate. In the time available after all the interventions from Opposition Members, I might not be able to deal with all his points, but I shall do my best.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Steele report and it should be put on record that the decision not to publish that report was taken by the previous Government. The incoming Government took on board the range of measures set out in the report, which specifically dealt with a tunnel escape attempt and set out various means of avoiding such escape attempts in future. I shall comment on those measures later.
The hon. Gentleman made several strong criticisms of the operational regime at the Maze and in respect of recent incidents, including the escape of Liam Averill and the murder of Billy Wright. Unfortunately, many of his accusations and the conclusions he draws from them are based on, as yet, unsubstantiated allegations made by a number of sources, some of them anonymous. That is not to say that I am dismissing them out of hand—far from it. There can be no question but that the escape of Liam Averill and the murder of Billy Wright were extremely serious breaches of security. Those incidents have cast considerable doubt on the effectiveness of the security arrangements that were in operation at the prison at the time and, as the hon. Gentleman said, they have seriously damaged public confidence in the management and control of the prison.
Let me assure the hon. Gentleman that I share each and every one of the concerns that he raises. I can equally assure him that all the points that he makes are taken very seriously indeed. Later in my speech, I shall return to the way in which the Government are dealing with them. However, before I do so, it is important to place the Maze prison and those who are held there in proper context.
I have said this before, both in the House and elsewhere, but it is worth repeating: the Maze is unique. There is no other prison anywhere in the democratic world that has such a concentration of terrorist murderers or those convicted of terrorist-related crimes—more than 500 dedicated terrorists who consider themselves to be not criminals, but prisoners of war. It should also be remembered that 29 prison officers have been killed and innumerable numbers threatened, along with their families, over the past 25 years or so. That is the reality not mentioned by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Donaldson: As many of the murdered prison officers were constituents of mine, let me make it


absolutely clear that we deplore those murders. We have nothing but the utmost admiration for the prison officers who serve in the prisons of Northern Ireland and nothing in what I have said is intended as a criticism of them. My remarks are a criticism of management and of those in political control in the Northern Ireland Office; in no way are they a criticism of the prison officers who serve in the Maze prison.

Mr. Ingram: Of course, I fully understand the hon. Gentleman's point, but he did not mention the Maze prison's uniqueness; nor did he try to place what happens in that prison in context or acknowledge the pressures on serving officers resulting from having to deal with those difficult prisoners. That creates unique and difficult conditions which run throughout the management of the prison, from bottom to top and from top to bottom. That reality should never be ignored by those who comment on events and the regime at the Maze.
Given those conditions, the attendant security and control problems are understandably and uniquely complex and difficult when balanced against the need to maintain a humanitarian regime. Those who are charged with the management responsibility of undertaking such a challenging role are regularly faced with the need to make difficult and sensitive decisions about security at the prison. That is an unenviable task which they have to perform on our behalf.
That situation is what the Government have faced since taking office last May and what previous Governments faced in the years before that. It is why the Government have put in place a progressive programme of tightened security measures, including twice daily head counts; cell fabric checks; a comprehensive search of cells and the blocks; control of materials available to prisoners; the installation of enhanced closed circuit television coverage in the blocks; and the scanning of all visitors along with other management measures, with more to come.
It is not the case, as the hon. Gentleman maintains, that security has been relaxed since May. The opposite is true, as the measures I have described prove. Of course, the matter does not rest there. In the light of the most recent, extremely serious, breaches of security, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has commissioned a full, rigorous and independent inquiry into events at the Maze. She has also asked Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons to carry out a full inspection at the Maze prison when the inquiry team has completed its work and reported its findings. Both those reports will be published and copies placed in the Library of the House.
The inquiry is well under way and its report is expected soon. I understand that the hon. Member for Lagan Valley has taken the opportunity to put his views directly to the inquiry team and I have no doubt that what he has already submitted and what he said to the House today, if that differs from his submission, will be fully considered by the inquiry team. However, as the inquiry is not yet complete, I am sure the hon. Gentleman will understand why it would be inappropriate for me to respond today to his detailed points.
I am, of course, only too well aware of the considerable speculation about what actually happened before, during and after the circumstances that led to the murder of Billy Wright. However, as the hon. Gentleman knows, that murder is the subject of a Royal Ulster Constabulary investigation and I must take care not to prejudice the outcome of that investigation and any criminal charges which may flow from it. The hon. Gentleman clearly has his own views on what went wrong, or what seemed to go wrong, on that occasion and in relation to the escape of Liam Averill.
The hon. Gentleman may well have obtained his information from sources inside the prison—sources who may have identified or commented on real or perceived shortcomings in security procedures generally within the H blocks. I hope that, if he has not done so already, he will encourage those who gave him that information to speak frankly to and co-operate fully with the inquiry team.

Mr. Donaldson: indicated assent.

Mr. Ingram: I see the hon. Gentleman nodding, which is good, as such action will help the inquiry team in its investigation. His sources should give the same evidence and views to Her Majesty's chief inspector during his investigation. It is clearly in the public interest and certainly in the interests of the Prison Service that all relevant information is made available to the inquiry team and to the inspector.
I have listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman's views on the matter of attributing responsibility and accountability for the serious security lapses. I am aware that, in response to public concern, there have been calls for the resignation of Ministers and officials. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already made it clear that resignations or dismissals are not an issue. The causes of the problem to which the hon. Gentleman refers will be clearer when we have the inquiry team's report and the report of Her Majesty's inspector of prisons. It would be wrong to prejudge or to speculate about what will emerge from that inquiry and that inspection; but, I repeat, those reports will be published and I have no doubt the hon. Gentleman and other Opposition Members will return to the subject at that time.
Let me make it clear that the Government inherited the regime at the Maze. The hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. MacKay) should reflect on what the Governments he supported did during their 18 years of administration of that prison and on what they bequeathed to the present Government. Before issuing demands for full and independent public inquiries, he should remember that the decision not to publish the Steele report was made by a Conservative Government.
Since May, we have put in place a range of improved security measures. The most recent events have all too graphically highlighted that complacency is not an option and that security needs to be reassessed constantly and changes made where appropriate. The independent inquiry and the inspection to be carried out by Her Majesty's—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order.

Iraq (Sanctions)

Mr. Harry Cohen: I thank Madam Speaker for granting me this important Adjournment debate.
It looks like we are building up to another military conflict in the Gulf. It has even been suggested that it will be in a couple of weeks' time, when Ramadan is over, in order to assuage Arab sensitivities.
I am opposed to any renewed war. Can the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett), tell me what the war aim would be this time? Would it be compliance with the United Nations resolutions? While Saddam Hussein stays in power, that compliance would not be worth the paper an agreement was written on. He has little incentive to comply because the United States has publicly stated that sanctions will remain in place—and largely unaltered—while he remains in power. Perhaps the war aim would be to remove Saddam Hussein from power, or even to kill him. How many Iraqis would it be acceptable to kill this time around? President Bush ended the previous war because more than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed in a turkey shoot, yet the allied armies were nowhere near Baghdad. How many British and US troops could be killed in such an operation? Saddam Hussein might escape anyway.
Perhaps the war aim would be to bomb Baghdad or even to raze it to the ground. As the New York Times has said, the targets would be difficult to choose without assuming enormous civilian casualties. Would it be our intention to occupy Iraq and install a puppet Government? The activities of the IRA would be like a tea party compared with the terrorism that our occupying forces would face in such circumstances. If the Government are travelling along with the Americans towards another war that could kill thousands of Iraqis and some of our people, they should spell out the war aim without blandness or obfuscation.
Richard Butler, the chief UN arms inspector, visited Iraq earlier this week, and said:
It is about disarmament. Iraq must comply with the UN.
That is not so. As I have pointed out, the US has issued clear and categorical statements that it will never agree to lifting sanctions while Saddam Hussein is in power. There is, therefore, no incentive for Iraq to comply because the sanctions will not be lifted anyway. It is all about pretexts for further conflict and not about compliance.
Let us consider the composition of the UN inspection teams. One consists of 16 members—nine from the US, five from Britain, one from Russia and one from Australia. Scott Ritter's team, which provoked the current dispute, consists of six Americans and three Britons. On Saturday 17 January, The Guardian reported:
China and France have put forward lists of their own experts to take the place of US and British inspectors.
Can my hon. Friend tell me why that offer has been rejected? The paper also went on to report:
The Russian defence minister, Igor Sergeyev, offered his country's surveillance aircraft to take the place of American U2 spy-planes, but the offer was turned down yesterday by his US counterpart, William Cohen.
I do not believe that Iraq can insist on a deadline for the completion of weapons inspections, but it is legitimate for it to ask when those teams will complete their work.

Surely the American answer to that is that that work will never be completed while Saddam Hussein is in power. Whether Iraq complies or not makes a marginal difference to the western approach to it. The US will veto or undermine any attempt to ease the sanctions against Iraq.
We should remember that those inspections are being carried out in the name of the UN, but I remind the Minister that the US has still not paid its $800 million dues to that organisation. Sanctions are a form of economic warfare which, for ordinary people, can be almost as devastating as the military version. In 1919, US President Woodrow Wilson described sanctions as
a quiet but most lethal weapon that exerts a pressure no nation can withstand.
The sanctions were imposed on Iraq following a devastating war and they are the most draconian and lethal form of economic warfare in modern history. More than a million people have died as a result of sanctions-related problems. Many of those victims have been children and those deaths still occur.
On 26 November 1997, UNICEF issued a press release on Iraq, which stated:
The most alarming results are those on malnutrition, with 32 per cent. of children under the age of five, some 960,000 children, chronically malnourished—a rise of 72 per cent. since 1991.
Philippe Heffinck, UNICEF's representative in Baghdad, states in that press release:
What we are seeing is a dramatic deterioration in the nutritional well-being of Iraqi children since 1991. And what concerns us now is that there is no sign of any improvement … It is clear that children are bearing the brunt of the current economic hardship. They must be protected from the impact of sanctions. Otherwise, they will continue to suffer, and that we cannot accept.
On 28 November, UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, produced a detailed report on the impact of sanctions. He, too, quoted nutritional surveys that confirmed the high level of malnutrition among children and adults in Iraq. He said that the general level of malnutrition among infants had not improved. He also reported:
The current food ration … and, in particular, its composition fall far short of meeting the nutritional needs of the Iraqi population. This is particularly valid since nutritional security is contingent upon a host of interrelated factors, such as safe water and available medicine, which are grossly inadequate at the moment. The current ration, even if it is distributed completely and in a timely manner, cannot address the chronic malnutrition and energy deficiency in adults. In order to improve the current serious situation, an enhanced ration is required.
In the health sector, United Nations observers regularly report an exceptionally serious deterioration in the health infrastructure: a high infant mortality rate and high rates of morbidity and mortality in general … Inputs under the resolution in the health sector will remain of limited impact if other related areas, such as proper treatment of water supply and sewage, electricity, improved quality of food rations and critical environmental problems, are not adequately addressed.
The Secretary-General also reports that the supply of drugs is inadequate and says:
As for supplies to treat acute respiratory disease and diarrhoea, associated with 50 per cent. of mortality among children under five, deliveries have been grossly insufficient.
He concludes:
The population of Iraq continues to face a serious nutritional and health situation and there is an urgent need to contain the risk of a further deterioration … The slow and erratic pace at which humanitarian inputs arrive in Iraq has been very unsatisfactory.

Ann Clwyd: My hon. Friend knows that I disagree with him on this issue, although I agree


with him on most others. He must be aware that under the present sanctions regime, up to 70 per cent. of the oil production is allowed to be sold, which is similar to the amount that was sold before sanctions were imposed. Is it not the case that Saddam Hussein has had considerable resources at his disposal which he could have used to alleviate the suffering of his own people? He has chosen not to do so and instead he has decided to continue to build weapons of mass destruction.

Mr. Cohen: I will deal with that point as part of my speech, but let us deal with the suffering first, on which I am afraid my hon. Friend and some other hon. Members seem content to turn their back. The House should not turn its back on it.
Margaret Hassan of Care International said:
There isn't a hospital we go into where we don't see severely malnourished children. It's a spiral of deprivation and this is being manifested through malnourishment.
She reports that medical shortages are reflected throughout the country and says:
I've seen a child that was severely burnt and they didn't even have paracetamol to give that child.
I have received a letter from Felicity Arbuthnot, a journalist who has just returned from her 10th visit to Iraq since the war. It is a moving letter which deserves to be put in full on to the official record. Part of it will be published in the New Internationalist. I shall read one paragraph to give the House a flavour of it. Felicity Arbuthnot says:
By 1993, doctors in Iraq had discovered a new diagnosis. Women too malnourished to breast feed and unable to buy milk powder (a can then as now exceeds the average monthly professional's salary) fed their babies on sugared water or sugared black tea. These babies become chronically malnourished, hugely bloated and almost all die. Doctors call them 'the sugar babies.
She says that this embargo-related child mortality is comparable to
the genocide of Pol Pot in the name of 'we the people of the United Nations.' Does Britain's new 'ethical' foreign policy really include supporting genocide"?
Mary Robinson, the new UN High Commissioner, spoke at Oxford university on 15 November last year. She said:
How can you expect me to condemn Human Rights abuses in Algeria and China and elsewhere when the United Nations themselves are responsible for the worst situation in Iraq? It's part of my job to bring to public consciousness the incredible suffering of Iraqi society.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central justified the sanctions in a letter to Mr. Richard Wilkins of Bow as highlighting
the terrible excesses of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Mr. Wilkins replied:
Surely the opposite is the case? Sanctions make it impossible for Iraqis and the world to say what suffering is caused by the regime and what is attributable to sanctions. They have clouded the issue in a way which is potentially dangerous. Furthermore, are we to accept the suffering and death of the people of Iraq merely to 'highlight' the wickedness of the regime? It is shocking that this appears to be part of the matrix of Government decision making in this matter.

I think that Mr. Wilkins is right in that argument and that my hon. Friend the Minister is wrong.
The oil-for-food deal is supposed to be $2 billion every six months, but, as Kofi Annan made clear, some essential humanitarian supplies have not been approved while others have not arrived. The deal simply does not meet the minimum needs of the Iraqi people. Only once in the 12-month operation of the oil-for-food deal have the Iraqis received the full monthly ration planned under the accord. In any case, the complete ration is full of carbohydrates and poor in protein, and usually lasts less than three weeks.
In the United Nations sanctions committee, the United States has almost singlehandedly blackballed scores of contracts on minor points for no apparent reason. Thirty per cent. of the money in the oil-for-food deal is siphoned off in reparations and goes to pay many exaggerated claims. For example, United States oil companies are greedily claiming millions and Iraq has no option if it wants the food money for its people.
The programme serves the US, as it mutes humanitarian concern while continuing to deny Iraq access to its oil wealth to solve its social and economic problems. However, the United States has blocked real humanitarian improvements to the programme, even those suggested by other Security Council members, the United Nations Secretariat, the World Health Organisation and the Food and Agriculture Organisation. It has blocked, with the tame accord of our Government, the proposal to double the oil-for-food programme.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will not, in simplistic soundbites, heap all the blame on Saddam Hussein, tyrant that we all know he is. The west also has choices in this matter and it has chosen the cynical game of targeting children and the sick. It may not have intended that initially, but it is now locked into it by American political will. It is morally wrong and our ethical Government should abandon their support for it.
I read to the House one last quotation.
In the case of Iraq and other repressive regimes … it is clear that many of the problems arise from a small elite who hold power within the economic, social and particularly military strata of the country. Therefore, where the international community has expressed disapproval of the actions of these regimes, it is the elite whom sanctions should target. This would improve the sanctions instrument, both for moral and humane reasons—those who are responsible should face the consequences—but also for practical reasons, since elites are able to cushion themselves from the deprivations suffered as a result of blanket sanctions, and the regime is unlikely to change.
My view is therefore that the UN should examine alternative sanctions instruments, such as suspending international air links into and out of the country concerned, freezing assets held in overseas bank accounts and a ban on the granting of visas for overseas travel, study etc. These measures might hit people who are not members of the regime, even perhaps the opposition, but they would not increase the suffering of the millions of innocent citizens as blanket trade and economic sanctions do.
That letter was written on 3 December 1996 by the now Secretary of State for International Development. I agree with her. It is time that the west stopped its war on Iraqi children.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: Four years ago, like every other visitor to Baghdad, I was taken to the Amariya and I saw the result of the use of cruise missiles.


When one sees carbonated bodies against concrete, it is easy to understand the effect on people of a missile attack by the world's most sophisticated weapons. Before any proposal of that nature goes ahead, that matter ought to be discussed fully in the House of Commons.

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Derek Fatchett): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr. Cohen) on the way in which he introduced his debate. I fully respect his humanitarian concerns and his long record of achievement in that respect. Therefore, no part of my response will question his personal integrity. However, there was one element that should have been in his speech. Given his concern for justice and equity, which has been so much a part of his political career, I am a little surprised that it was not in his speech.
Whenever we discuss Iraq, we need to recognise the nature of the regime that has existed there in recent years. The regime led by Saddam Hussein is the most brutal dictatorship that has existed. It has turned regularly against its own people. Let us put on record, so that my hon. Friend's speech can be seen in a broader context, some of the events that have been rightly attributed to Saddam Hussein. This is a regime which has used chemical weapons against its own people. It is a unique regime—viciously unique—in that respect. It is a regime which turned against the marsh Arabs seven years ago, literally slaughtering thousands of people. It is a regime which turned against the Kurds in northern Iraq, again slaughtering tens of thousands of people. It is a regime which, as we have seen recently, executed more than 1,000 prisoners simply because they did not wholly and totally support Saddam Hussein. The regime has an abuse of human rights record that is sadly second to none. It attacked without any provocation one of its neighbours, Kuwait, and caused it personal, humanitarian and environmental damage that, again, is without precedent in the middle east.
My hon. Friend's humanitarian concerns are well known, but let us not forget Saddam Hussein's record in his treatment of his own people and of other people in the middle east. It would not be any exaggeration to say that any one part of that record shows Saddam Hussein to be a criminal, who has gone against all known and understood human values. His record is clear.
My hon. Friend argued that sanctions have not worked. I know that that was his argument because he would not argue against sanctions in principle. He and I are long supporters of sanctions in certain circumstances and he had a tremendous record in arguing for sanctions in relation to apartheid in South Africa. I congratulate him on his stand on that issue. The question is one not of principle, but of whether the sanctions have worked to achieve the objectives.
Let us consider the record, in particular that of the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq, which was heavily criticised by my hon. Friend. We are dealing with a dictatorship which has not only the record to which I have referred, but is capable of developing weapons of mass destruction: nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. One does not have to take more than a cursory glance at the daily Hansard to know that my hon. Friend has rightly fought a strong campaign for the disarmament of all those weapons.
Saddam Hussein had all that capacity: nuclear, biological and chemical. That weaponry was a threat not just to the middle east, but, as we know from the dictator's record, to his own people in Iraq. I do not believe for a moment that my hon. Friend would wish that arsenal to be in the hands of someone so evil and so reckless. UNSCOM's work has been able to rid Iraq of more weapons of mass destruction than the whole of the Gulf war achieved.
I am sure that my hon. Friend does not demur for a moment from that objective—the need to get rid of those weapons. He need only talk to people in the other regimes in the middle east. If UNSCOM were withdrawn and were not allowed to do its job, other regimes and peoples in the middle east would not sleep easily while Saddam Hussein had an arsenal and the capacity and will to use it.
Once a dictator has tasted blood, as Saddam Hussein did in Kuwait and against his own people, the ruthless wish to hold on to and to extend power will come through again and again. Every dictator throughout history has shown that insatiable thirst. The policy of appeasement—saying that UNSCOM is not working and therefore we must withdraw it—is immensely dangerous for the middle east and for the people of Iraq. UNSCOM must be allowed to get on with its work. We have made that abundantly clear and we will continue to do so.
My hon. Friend is a strong advocate of the United Nations and he is right to be because the UN features in the aims of our political party. We share a socialist commitment towards international organisations. If we allow the UN to be undermined by this dictator, we might as well say that that is the end of the objectives that we share with the UN. A defeat on these issues would be a devastating blow to the UN's legitimacy and credibility.
My hon. Friend referred to the end of sanctions. I was surprised by one or two of his arguments. The position is simple: compliance brings the end of sanctions—no more, no less.

Mr. Cohen: The United States has never said that.

Mr. Fatchett: My hon. Friend says that the US position is different. It is on the record that the United States has said that compliance means the end of sanctions. I suggest that if my hon. Friend wants to make a real contribution to the middle east, he should send Saddam Hussein a copy of any document urging him to comply with sanctions because all we ask is that Iraq gives up its capability in nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, a point to which my hon. Friend has referred time and again and on which he has campaigned.
My hon. Friend argues that our approach does not include a concern for the people of Iraq and that we have turned our back on them. Let us again consider the record. Since 1991, the United Kingdom has unilaterally contributed more than £94 million in direct aid to the people of Iraq. We are involved in mine clearing and, through Save the Children Fund, we are working with children on water and sanitation projects. We are involved in aid to Iraq and we are trying to make a contribution towards the well-being of the ordinary people of Iraq.
My hon. Friend says that sanctions have been imposed against food and medicine. That is factually incorrect. There are no sanctions on food and medicine and we must not fall into the trap of believing other people's propaganda. If we consider the resolutions, we find that it is not true that there are sanctions on food and medicine.
My hon. Friend says that the oil-for-food approach is not working; I give him three facts to take away from this debate. First, the approach is not working because Saddam Hussein rejected it in August 1991 and has subsequently looked for every opportunity to divert resources towards not the people of Iraq, but his own programme of weapons of mass destruction. My hon. Friend is dealing with a dictator who kills his own people. Does my hon. Friend honestly believe that Saddam Hussein will give greater priority to Iraq's people than to his programme of weapons of mass destruction?
Secondly, we know where some of the money has gone. There is no more hideous element in the stand-off with UNSCOM than the dictatorship's claim, while thousands of Iraq's people starve, that it cannot allow UNSCOM into 71 presidential palaces. Is my hon. Friend, a keen supporter of equity and justice, going to say that one dictator needs 71 presidential palaces? Surely, on the resolutions argument, he should be saying that the money should be spent on the people of Iraq and not on the vanity and palaces of Saddam Hussein.
Thirdly, it is the United Kingdom which has taken an active part in ensuring that we open the process of oil for food. We want the system to work. A UN report will be published on 30 January on the matter. If we can make the system more efficient and get more money to Iraq's people, we shall do so. It is not our objective to damage the ordinary people of Iraq, but we can help them only if the Iraqi dictatorship allows it and does not divert the money towards its own purpose—to the elite groups to which my hon. Friend referred—and towards the weapons of mass destruction programme.
We debate Iraq on many occasions. I have no hesitation in concluding this debate by saying that there is no greater single humanitarian concern for Iraq's people than that they should have a change of Government and of approach in Iraq. If we can bring openness, pluralism and democracy to Iraq, we shall make the single greatest contribution to its well-being. If Iraq looked after and cared for its own people and was not going to threaten its neighbours, that would be a real humanitarian contribution. That is part of our ethical foreign policy and that is the objective towards which we work. We are not going to appease; we are going to stand up for our principles. That is the popular and sensible way in which to make progress.

It being Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Sitting suspended, pursuant to Standing Order No. 10 (Wednesday sittings), till half-past Two o'clock.

Oral Answers to Questions — WALES

The Secretary of State was asked—

Welsh Assembly (Site)

Mr. Paterson: If he will make a statement on the consultation process for determining the site of the Welsh assembly. [21961]

Mr. Wilkinson: If he will make a statement on the consultation process for determining the site for the proposed Welsh assembly. [21969]

The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Ron Davies): I issued a consultation paper on 8 December which invites the people of Wales to comment on the location of the National Assembly for Wales. There have been several hundred responses so far. The consultation period ends on 30 January and I expect to be able to announce a decision by early March 1998.

Mr. Paterson: How much will this embarrassing consultation period cost? From which budget will the money come? Will schools, roads or the farmers suffer?

Mr. Davies: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's continuing interest in this matter. I assure him that I have had a very positive response from the people of Wales and that the consultation process, far from being an embarrassment, is a very positive exercise in which the Government consult the people of Wales. I believe that the fact that I have received several hundred responses shows a real interest throughout Wales in this matter.
The costs of the consultation exercise will be met out of the Welsh block grant, so there is no suggestion of any additional costs. Given the hon. Gentleman's continuing interest in Welsh affairs, I know that he will be disappointed to know that I have not yet received a bid from North Shropshire.

Mr. Wilkinson: In view of the dignity, size and appropriateness of Swansea town hall, an historic building which has been under-used lately, will the right hon. Gentleman significantly and seriously take into account its very real merits, especially in view of the cost-effectiveness of this solution compared with new build?

Mr. Davies: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's serious contribution. I acknowledge the fact that I have received a submission from Swansea and the fact that the bid from Swansea has been based on very effective use of the existing buildings and on widespread public support. However, it would not be appropriate at this stage for me to express support for any of the submissions because this is a genuine consultation period. I intend, as soon as possible after 30 January, to publish a full list of the submissions. I hope fairly shortly after that to produce a

shortlist and have a brief consultation period so that, when we take a final decision, it is based on the fullest possible consensus.

Mr. Alan Williams: While avoiding any direct comment on the merits of any site, may I ask for an assurance from my right hon. Friend that, when the time comes for him to make his announcement, it will not be lost in, say, his annual Welsh day debate speech, but that he will make a specific statement at the Dispatch Box so that all hon. Members with an interest have an opportunity to ask questions?

Mr. Davies: My right hon. Friend is a renowned and avid campaigner for a yes vote—the yes vote being for Swansea, if not for the assembly itself. There is a genuine consultation process. I cannot give my right hon. Friend the assurance that I shall make a specific statement at the Dispatch Box. However, I can assure him that there will be a genuine process of consultation on the shortlist and that I hope to ensure that, when the final decision is taken, all hon. Members have the opportunity to be involved and will be able to question me on the basis of that decision.

Ann Clwyd: My local authority area is delighted that my right hon. Friend has opened up the process to consultation, particularly since the greatest swing since 1979 in favour of an assembly took place in the Rhondda Cynon Taff local authority area. He will know that the site in Abercynon offers 17.5 acres and is ready and looking forward to the arrival of a purpose-built home for the kind of assembly that Wales needs in the 21st century.

Mr. Davies: Without wanting to stir up any controversy about the meaning of yes, yes votes, I acknowledge that my hon. Friend was a strong campaigner in favour of an assembly, and that she now leads a strong yes campaign for it to be located in the Rhondda Cynon Taff local authority area. I can confirm that I have received a submission; it will receive the closest possible consideration. I am afraid that, like all the other submissions, it will have to take its chance in due course in the proper evaluation.

Mr. Ancram: Is not the right hon. Gentleman embarrassed by the fact that, six months after bravely proclaiming in the White Paper that the assembly's headquarters would be in Cardiff, he is no further forward towards establishing where it will be—except to say that it might not necessarily be in Cardiff? Is he not ashamed of the fact that, unlike his better-organised Scottish colleague, he has started taking through legislation to establish an assembly without knowing where it will go?
Is not all this typical of the haphazard, ill-thought-out way that the Secretary of State has approached the whole issue? Does he agree that, if he had been slightly less bullying and arrogant towards his Labour colleagues, especially on Cardiff city council, the assembly might now have a comfortable home in Cardiff city hall?

Mr. Davies: The right hon. Gentleman is wrong in every respect: I am neither embarrassed nor ashamed. He has one question to answer himself. Is he suggesting that I should be prepared to pay more than the market value for Cardiff city hall? That is the question that I have put to him time after time.
I made it absolutely clear right from the start of the devolution process that I believed that Cardiff city hall was the best location for the National Assembly. However, Cardiff was not prepared to sell it at market value, and I was not prepared to pay more than the market value for the building. We are now embarked on a proper process of consultation. I am disappointed to find that the right hon. Gentleman, instead of looking back, cannot now play a constructive role in ensuring a new democracy and a prosperous economy for Wales.

Mr. Rhodri Morgan: Without commenting on particular locations during the consultation period, may I ask the Secretary of State to agree that one of the difficulties of the early years of the Welsh assembly might arise if the bureaucracy of the Welsh Office to be transferred to work for the assembly remained at a distance from where it met? The worst outcome of all would be if meetings between Members of the Welsh assembly and the civil servants serving it had to take place in a lay-by on the M4.

Mr. Davies: My hon. Friend is tempting me into stating a preference as between Cardiff and Swansea, and I have no intention of doing so. Whatever the eventual location of the assembly, I want to ensure that, by using the most modern information technology, it will be possible for assembly representatives and the people working for them to be in contact with all the people of Wales, not just those in lay-bys on the M4.

Post-Chernobyl Restricted Land

Mr. Baker: What is the acreage of land in post—Chernobyl restricted areas; and how many farms lie within that land. [21962]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Win Griffiths): I am pleased to announce that I have been able to authorise the lifting of restrictions on some farms in Wales with effect from today.
The area of land under restriction in Wales is now approximately 530 sq km—that is 131,000 acres, for those of us who were in school before 1970—affecting about 148 whole farms and parts of 211 others.

Mr. Baker: Many hon. Members will be pleased by that news but, after 12 years, great inconvenience to Welsh farmers and £8 million in the sheep compensation scheme, is not the lesson to be drawn that any country that relies on nuclear power is foolish in its energy policy, and all countries would be better off with an energy policy without nuclear power?

Mr. Griffiths: Obviously, there are lessons to be learnt from the Chernobyl disaster, and those are being learnt across the world. I am pleased to say that today's announcement means that, whereas after the disaster 23 per cent. of land was affected, the figure is now only 3 per cent.

Mr. Llwyd: My constituency was probably the worst affected by the Chernobyl fallout of any in the United Kingdom. That was largely because of the inactivity of

the Ukrainian authorities. How does the Minister square that with the fact that the same hill farmers are now in a dire state due to the inactivity of his Government?

Mr. Griffiths: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman did not mean that. He knows that just, before Christmas, an aid package was announced by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Agriculture. Of that money, about £12 million will come to Wales, and about half of it is specifically targeted towards farmers in the upland areas. Although we can always argue about how much is needed, at least that money will help farmers in the upland areas of Wales.

Mr. Llew Smith: Does the Minister accept that one of the lessons to be learnt from that tragedy, in which a plant some 2,000 miles away affected land in Wales, is that we should bring an end to our increasing dependence on nuclear power, and concentrate instead on more cost-effective, environmentally friendly energy forms?

Mr. Griffiths: I am sure that my hon. Friend realises that the entire Government are acutely aware of the need for the highest standards of safety, not just for nuclear power, but for other forms of power. I wonder whether, in expressing his concerns, he is implying that the National Assembly for Wales should take direct responsibility for those matters.

Welsh Assembly (Cost)

Mr. Ian Bruce: If he will make a statement on his latest estimate of the cost to public funds of the Welsh assembly. [21963]

Mr. Ron Davies: The financial memorandum to the Government of Wales Bill contains the latest estimates of the cost of the National Assembly for Wales. I estimate that the capital cost of establishing the assembly will not exceed £17 million, and that the annual running costs will be between £15 million and £20 million. I do not expect the assembly to yield any overall increase in public expenditure.

Mr. Bruce: As we are still scurrying around trying to find out where the assembly is to be set up, how can the Minister be sure that what he promised in his White Paper in July will be delivered? That was the basis on which people narrowly voted for the assembly.

Mr. Davies: The hon. Gentleman may be scurrying around, but I assure him that the Government are not. We have a well-prepared consultation exercise, which will ultimately deliver an appropriate home for the assembly. That was not the most imaginative question that the hon. Gentleman has asked in the House. We first produced the figures in July in the White Paper; we fought a referendum in September on the basis of those figures; we had a Second Reading debate in December on the basis of those figures; and the Government of Wales Bill is now in Committee, and the figures are the same. The hon. Gentleman, like his colleagues in the Conservative party, always wants to look backwards. I urge him and his colleagues to concentrate on the task ahead—building an assembly that is truly representative, efficient and effective, and that brings new democracy to Wales.

Mr. Hanson: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the cost of running the unelected quangos in Wales under the previous Administration was far higher than the cost of running the assembly will be under the new Administration? Will he also make it clear to the House that many former Tory Members of Parliament, such as the Conservative whom I replaced in 1992, and the Conservative whom my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Ms Morgan) replaced at the last election, are now willing to stand for a devolved Parliament? Should not the Conservative party accept the result of the referendum?

Mr. Davies: My hon. Friend is correct. About one third of Welsh Office public expenditure is now accounted for by the quango state. The abuse of patronage associated with that did much to ensure that Wales was made Tory free at the last general election. I confirm that it is also my understanding that two former Ministers in the Welsh Office, Mr. Rod Richards and Mr. Gwilym Jones, both of whom lost their seats in the general election, are now seeking election to the assembly. They at least understand that the world has moved on. It is a pity that the remnant of the Conservative party in the House of Commons has not come up to date, as they have.

Mr. Evans: I speak as the remnant of the Conservative party—I assume that the Secretary of State was referring to me. He will be delighted that we in the Conservative party are looking forward. However, as we look forward, it seems as though the whole assembly machine is rolling backwards. Three months ago, we knew where the assembly was going—now we do not. Three months ago, we knew the majority who were in favour of the referendum. Now there are massive question marks as to what the majority is. Will the next fudge and fumble be over the budget contained in the White Paper? Page 30 of the White Paper clearly states that the set-up costs are between £12 million and £17 million, and that the running costs are between £15 million and £20 million, but pages one and 30 clearly state that the assembly headquarters will be set up in Cardiff.
The Secretary of State has reversed, possibly, one of his decisions. What guarantees do the people of Wales have that he will not reverse his decision on the assembly's budget?

Mr. Davies: I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman really does not understand the developments that have taken place over the past couple of months. The figures were made quite clear in the White Paper—I am glad to see that he is studying them. Those figures were endorsed in the referendum. I made it quite clear during the referendum that the figures contained in the White Paper were the basis on which the assembly will be established. We produced a financial memorandum, which was debated at great length in the House in December. There is no reason to believe now, or at any time in the future, that we have any intention whatever of moving from those figures.

Health Service

Ms Lawrence: If he will make a statement on the percentage cash increase for the health service in Wales in 1998–99. [21965]

Mr. Win Griffiths: Provision for the NHS in Wales in 1998–99 will be £2,455.3 million—a cash increase of £113.8 million, which is an increase of 4.9 per cent. over 1997–98.

Ms Lawrence: I thank the Minister for that information. Does he agree that the internal market, introduced or imposed on the NHS in Wales by the Tories, has set hospital against hospital and has completely failed patients in Wales? I welcome the move to abolish the internal market with the publication last week of the White Paper, "Putting Patients First", not least because it appears that that will save £50 million, which is currently spent on red tape, put it back into front-line patient care and restore co-operation, in place of competition.

Mr. Griffiths: I thank my hon. Friend for that question and for pointing out the very important step taken last week with the publication of our White Paper on abolishing the internal market in Wales. We estimate that it will save us about £50 million over the lifetime of a Parliament, which will go directly to patient care. By delaying the eighth wave of fundholding doctors, we have been able this year to put another £2.5 million into the health service. A great deal of that will go towards helping overcome the winter crisis and, of course, improving our cancer services.

Mr. Dafis: What are the projected deficits for the trusts in the Dyfed Powys area for the current year and for the next financial year? How much will be saved by the reconfiguration exercise in which the Secretary of State is currently involved? In my view, it will not be much. Is he prepared to say that those deficits can be recovered without serious additional money or cuts in services, in terms of quality or accessibility? If he is prepared to say that, does he expect anyone to believe him?

Mr. Griffiths: The hon. Gentleman will know that, right now, the Dyfed Powys health authority is in consultation with trusts in its areas about how it will deal with its estimated deficit this year of about £7 million. Obviously, it is for the trusts and the health authority to come forward with plans to deal with it. I shall be very interested in the outcome of those proposals, to see whether anything else is required of the Welsh Office. That is the position.

Mr. Rowlands: I warmly welcome the abolition of the internal market, which is hugely wasteful of health resources, but will my hon. Friend ensure that some of the savings will go into services in the Rhymney valley, which all recent surveys have demonstrated are woefully inadequate?

Mr. Griffiths: I assure my hon. Friend that I am very much aware of the underfunding of the health service in the Rhymney valley, which has been something of a


problem for a number of years. The Gwent health authority is keen to make up for that, even if it has not been able to do so in the past year.

Hill Farming

Mr. Luff: What recent meetings he has had with farmers or their representatives to discuss the economic viability of hill farming in Wales; and if he will make a statement. [21966]

Mr. Ron Davies: As part of the 1997 autumn review into the economic conditions in the hills and uplands of Wales, I met representatives of both farming unions in Wales on 27 October. I also met representatives of both the unions again on a number of occasions last month and this month, and most recently yesterday. Hill farming receives substantial support. The Government announced a package of further support for livestock farmers on 22 December, which will provide significant additional help for Welsh hill farmers.

Mr. Luff: I am glad to hear that the Secretary of State is in regular dialogue with Welsh farmers, but, bearing in mind the catastrophic effect of the strength of sterling on sheep and beef farmers, and the fact that the costs that the Government are imposing on beef farmers in 1998 will exceed the help available in the assistance package announced before Christmas, will he take the opportunity in his reply to show that he understands the seriousness of the situation facing Welsh hill farmers and accept that further action may be necessary?

Mr. Davies: I agree that severe problems face upland farmers not only in Wales but throughout Britain, not least of which is the legacy of the BSE crisis, which the Government also face, which has hit Britain in recent years. BSE has cost the farming industry and the British taxpayer billions of pounds and I shall take no lectures from a supporter of the previous Government, whose incompetence in handling BSE has given British agriculture the biggest crisis that it has faced this century.

Mr. Edwards: In view of the deep frustration felt by the farmers of Monmouthshire, many of whom came to the House yesterday, will my right hon. Friend work with his ministerial colleagues to ensure the clear and accurate labelling of meat products in supermarkets and that action is taken against sub-standard beef imports, and will he do all in his power to ensure that the beef ban is lifted?

Mr. Davies: The lifting of the ban at a European level is at the heart of the Government's strategy on the matter. I assure my hon. Friend that I am in close and regular contact with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on the matter. I have met representatives of the Welsh farming unions and shall continue to do so and, in conjunction with them, we are developing our own strategy, which I hope will bring a distinctive Welsh response to the distinctive problems of Wales.

Mr. Livsey: Will the Secretary of State please take note of the catastrophic situation in the sheep industry? The market price of lamb has collapsed and exports are difficult. Will the right hon. Gentleman do everything he

can to obtain the lifting of the specified risk material restrictions on lamb carcases so that they can be exported whole to France and treated there, which will greatly assist the situation?

Mr. Davies: I understand the nature of the crisis facing agriculture, particularly in the hon. Gentleman's constituency where the problems are severe, and I shall continue to work with the farming unions and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to put in place a range of responses to attempt to meet the problems of not only the livestock sector but agriculture generally. I listened with care to the representatives of the hon. Gentleman's constituency.

Mr. Ancram: When will the Secretary of State stop posturing and wake up to the seriousness of the crisis in agriculture and the rural economy in Wales? Does he not realise that the nightmare is not cyclical, that it affects all sectors and that it is largely caused by the high rate of the green pound, which itself is caused by successive interest rate rises under this Government? Can he not see that support is desperately and urgently needed now, and that, unless proper compensation arrangements are triggered, he and his colleagues will be seen for what they are—the Government who could not care less about the countryside and the people who work and live in it.

Mr. Davies: I am afraid that the right hon. Gentleman has got it completely wrong again. If there is any posturing, it is coming from him. He supported the previous Government for 18 years, during which they failed to put in place any long-term restructuring of British agriculture, failed to achieve reform of the common agricultural policy and presided over the disaster of BSE. The problems caused by the collapse of the beef industry as a result of the incompetent handling of BSE by the Conservative Government lie at the heart of the crisis currently facing British farming.

New Deal Programme

Ms Julie Morgan: When the new deal programme will begin in Wales; and if he will make a statement. [21968]

Mr. Ruane: When the new deal welfare-to-work programme will begin in Wales; and if he will make a statement. [21970]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Peter Hain): The new deal for 18 to 24-year-olds started in the south-west Wales pathfinder area on 5 January 1998 and will be extended to all parts of Wales from 6 April 1998. The new deal for unemployed people aged 25 and over will start in June 1998. The new deal for lone parents is being piloted in Cardiff and the Vale and will be extended to all parts of Wales from April 1998 for newly registering lone parents and from October 1998 for lone parents already registered. The programme for people with a disability or long-term illness will start from late spring 1998.

Ms Morgan: I thank my hon. Friend for his reply. Will it be possible for lone parents to take advantage of some of the options available to 18 to 24-year-olds under the


new deal—options that are not open to them under the lone parent initiative—particularly the employment and training option?

Mr. Hain: I pay tribute to the commitment and energy shown by my hon. Friend on that subject. Nearly one third of those interviewed in Cardiff and the Vale have been helped into jobs and others have been helped into training. We are determined to help lone parents in Wales, not attack them as the Tories did.

Mr. Ruane: I welcome the £190 million for Wales in the new deal. Does my hon. Friend agree that an attack on poverty—indeed, a war on poverty—is needed in Wales? After 18 years of Tory rule, Wales has the worst housing in Britain, the worst health in Britain and the lowest pay in Britain, as well every fifth household not working.

Mr. Hain: I agree with my hon. Friend. The Tories condemned millions of people to despair. Labour is mobilising billions of pounds from the excess profits of the privatised utilities to bring hope, opportunity and the dignity of work. What a contrast between the people's party in government and the fat cats' party, which is so degenerate that it was willing to take more than £1 million from a Hong Kong drugs baron.

Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: Does the Minister accept that an additional problem to unemployment in rural areas is depopulation? What assurances can he give not only that will the new deal provide jobs for young people but that they will have opportunities to have those jobs in their communities, raising the economic profile of those areas?

Mr. Hain: I am conscious of the problems of the rural areas of Wales. We shall make special efforts to ensure that opportunities are available to everyone who wishes to take advantage of them in rural areas such as that represented by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Brady: Does the Minister believe that the new deal will reduce unemployment in Wales? If so, by what time or what year does he believe that the savings to the welfare budget will exceed the cost of the new deal programme?

Mr. Hain: Yes, I believe that the new deal will reduce unemployment in Wales. That contrasts with the pathetic and shabby record of the Tory party, which consistently pushed people off the claimants register into a jobless ghetto. The new deal will bring more jobs to young people and to the long-term adult unemployed. That will relieve the burden on the welfare bill and give more resources to education and health, which the Tory Government cut, cut and cut.

Mr. Barry Jones: How many places and how much money will come to my constituency from the new deal? Does my hon. Friend agree that the new deal will also attempt to tackle the drugs culture and petty crime from which many of our communities suffer?

Mr. Hain: I expect several hundred job opportunities to come to the people in my hon. Friend's constituency, especially the young unemployed. I also expect that to

make a start in tackling the increase in the drugs culture, over which the Conservative Government presided, that has left many of our communities in terrible despair.

Welsh Assembly

Mr. Nicholls: What meetings he has had with representatives from local government in Wales regarding the Welsh assembly. [21971]

Mr. Ron Davies: I have had three formal meetings with leaders of the Welsh Local Government Association at which the Welsh assembly was discussed. The first was on 2 June, when we discussed progress towards the White Paper. The second was on 28 August, when the WLGA publicly confirmed its support for the assembly. The third was on 15 December, when I and the association signed "A Framework for Partnership in Wales", which sets out the way in which relations between central and local government in Wales will be conducted.

Mr. Nicholls: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that the concerns expressed about the way in which the various counts were conducted are not merely vague rumours? Does not he understand that when members even of his own constituency party who, after all, would have approved of the verdict that resulted, are so concerned that they take up with the counting officer their concerns about the way in which the result was handled, the only way to restore confidence is to have an independent judicial inquiry? What is the right hon. Gentleman concerned about? Is it the fact that, if there were a re-run, he would not win a second time?

Mr. Davies: I assure the hon. Gentleman and the House that the representations that were made to the counting officer in Caerphilly have been properly and fully answered. If the hon. Gentleman has any questions whatever, he should put them and I shall ensure that they are properly answered. I hope that he will stop sneering and trying to blight by innuendo public servants who have served the public interest in Wales well.
The hon. Gentleman asked about local government and the relationship between regional and local government. I refer him to a letter that I received from a very prominent local government leader. It says:
we are playing our part in helping to devolve power to the regions and look forward to a stronger partnership emerging between local government and the regional structures that are now being created.
That letter was written by Councillor Brian Greenslade, who is the leader of Devon county council. If the hon. Gentleman is interested in a developing relationship between local and regional government, I suggest that he looks a little closer to home than Wales.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIME MINISTER

The Prime Minister was asked—

Engagements

Miss Widdecombe: If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 21 January.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Tony Blair): This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others.


In between, as I think the House will shortly learn from the media, I took an interesting and detailed call from a hoax caller at Capital Radio, who managed to persuade the No. 10 switchboard that he was the Leader of the Opposition.

Miss Widdecombe: Instead of wasting his time on hoax calls, will the Prime Minister take time out of his not particularly exacting day to survey the various fiascos and broken promises that have characterised the first few months of his Administration? When he considers the affluence test, the lone parents rebellion, the individual savings accounts fiasco and the odd rebuke of the Paymaster General, does he take personal responsibility for those fiascos and the Ministers presiding over them, or does he put it all down to the psychological flaws of the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

The Prime Minister: I thought that there was something of the night about that question. I shall tell the right hon. Lady what I take personal responsibility for: the extra money that we have put into schools and hospitals—[HoN. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—cutting VAT on fuel—[HoN. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—the welfare-to-work programme of £3.5 billion—[HoN. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—and sorting out the budget deficit and inflation left us by the Government of which she was a member.

Mr. Bill O'Brien: Will my right hon. Friend accept from me and from other hon. Members congratulations on his determination—and that of our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and other members of the Northern Ireland team—to continue with the way forward in Northern Ireland? Will he assure me, the House and the United Kingdom that there will be no deviation from the programme that he has set to try to bring peace to the island of Ireland?

The Prime Minister: Yes is the answer to that. We will not be deflected in any way by the murders and killings that have happened over the past few days from seeking a proper peaceful and long-term settlement for Northern Ireland. One of the best reasons for not being so deflected is that that is precisely what the killers want. It would be the ultimate surrender of the democrats to the men of violence if we ended up being deflected in any way by what they have done from searching for a decent peaceful solution in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Hague: Has the Prime Minister received any hoax calls from a man claiming to be Chancellor of the Exchequer and wanting a friendly chat? While he is answering that question, will he describe what the Secretary of State for Social Security meant by affluence testing?

The Prime Minister: As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State herself has made clear, it is important that we try to target benefits on those who need them most.

Mr. Hague: It is a pretty straightforward question. All we want to know is what the Secretary of State for Social Security meant by affluence testing. Millions of people have read her comments, and millions of people

take her seriously—God help them—so millions of people want to know what the phrase means. Does it mean means testing, or does it mean something else?

The Prime Minister: I have just explained what it means. It means getting help to those who need it most. We have inherited a situation in which, as even the Conservative party now accepts, the welfare state is not working, spending is up and poverty is up. We shall sort out, yet again, the mess that we inherited.

Mr. Hague: We want welfare reform. As I have told the Prime Minister, we shall support it if it is according to certain principles. What we want to know is when the Government will decide where they are going on welfare reform. The Secretary of State for Social Security talks about affluence testing, an unnamed Minister briefs the Sunday papers that the Prime Minister has ruled that out and the Deputy Prime Minister is put in charge of the committee on welfare reform because the Prime Minister thinks that the Chancellor has lost his marbles and cannot be in charge of it. Now, the Prime Minister cannot define affluence testing. What is affluence testing, and is it an option?

The Prime Minister: Welfare reform is already going on; £3.5 billion is being spent on the welfare-to-work programme, yet the right hon. Gentleman has nothing to say about that. Welfare reform is going on at the moment in relation to student finance. What has he got to say about that? Nothing. The truth is that he has a few sixth form debating points, but nothing serious to say about anything.

Mr. Hague: In a Government in which Ministers do not know where they are going on that subject, the Prime Minister really is the first among equals now. When will Ministers realise that when they run such stories people take them seriously? They are in government now; they are not playing fantasy think tank any more. When Ministers play silly games—promoting one scheme and knocking down another Minister's scheme—families are left not knowing where they stand, people with pension entitlements are uncertain of where they stand and disabled people are left feeling betrayed. It is not a case of sixth form debating points; people are worried about what the Government propose and they want to know—they want to be told—where the Government stand. When will the Prime Minister publish the Green Paper that was promised before Christmas?

The Prime Minister: I had better and shorter questions from the hoax caller. It is utterly absurd to talk about betrayal of the disabled. As a matter of fact, the Government have put £200 million more than the previous Government into helping disabled people off benefit and into work. It was the Conservative Government who cut £2 billion from the bill for the disabled—and who was the Minister who introduced the regulations? The present Leader of the Opposition. As for his saying that it is time that we realised that we are in government, all I can say, after that question, is thank heavens we are.

Mr. Hague: It is not unreasonable to ask when the Green Paper will be published—the Green Paper that it was said would be published before Christmas. This Government


have put a tax on people's pension funds, are putting a tax on people's savings, are introducing huge rises in council tax and have presided over five mortgage rate rises; and now they want to tell people that they will test them on how affluent they are. Does the Prime Minister accept that it is not unreasonable to ask when the proposals will be published, and when the Green Paper will be produced?

The Prime Minister: rose—

Hon. Members: When?

Madam Speaker: Order. May we have a little quiet?

The Prime Minister: Last week, the right hon. Gentleman was trying to tell me that he supported our welfare reforms.
First, let me say that the mortgage rises have had to be made because of the inflation that we inherited from the Government of which the right hon. Gentleman was a member. Having been advised by the Bank of England to put up interest rates, they failed to do so.
Yes, we have cured the budget deficit. We have done it without raising income tax rates at all, and at the same time we have managed to put more money into schools and hospitals—as we said we would. That is the difference between a Government who keep their promises and the last Government, who broke them.

Barbara Follett: My right hon. Friend and I may differ in our hopes for the outcome of the Stevenage v Newcastle match this Sunday, but will he join me in welcoming the report produced this morning by the numeracy task force? [Interruption.] Through its emphasis—[Interruption.]

Madam Speaker: Order. Just a moment. The hon. Lady will be heard in the House. Just keep quiet and listen to the questions.

Barbara Follett: Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Through its emphasis on mental arithmetic, daily maths lessons and whole-class teaching, the report will ensure that we reach our national target of three quarters of 11-year-olds in the standard set for their age.

The Prime Minister: Yes. It is extremely important for us to raise standards of literacy and numeracy among 11-year-olds. At present, about half do not reach the required standards. We have introduced a programme that focuses particular help on ensuring that that is done. If it is done in the way we believe it can be done, over the next few years there will be a significant rise in the number of 11-year-olds who attain the required standards. If they attain those standards, when they enter secondary schooling they will be far better able to cope than they are now.

Mr. Ashdown: Is the Prime Minister aware that what he calls a patriotic alliance across parties on Europe in the national interest already exists? It consists of the Confederation of British Industry, the Trades Union Congress, the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer and his Conservative friends, and the Liberal Democrats, and it believes—as it appears the Government do not—that we

ought not to rule out the possibility of a referendum on a single currency in this Parliament if that is in the nation's interest. Will the Prime Minister join us?

The Prime Minister: I have made clear the reason for the Government's position. We believe that, because of the economic conditions that exist and, in particular, the fact that currently there is not convergence between Britain and the main European economies, it would not be wise for us to be in the first wave of European monetary union, but the principles that we have set out are very clear, they are right, I believe that they are supported by the vast majority of people in the country and I think that there is widespread support for them across the political spectrum.

Mr. Ashdown: I ask the Prime Minister to answer the question, which is whether he rules out a referendum on a single currency during this Parliament. Either that can be done in the national interest or it can be done according to the electoral timetable, but it cannot be done on the basis of both.
I do not, of course, expect the Prime Minister to agree with the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer but, even given the tensions between them, I do expect him to agree with the present Chancellor—and he has said that nothing should be ruled out in this Parliament. Does the Prime Minister agree?

The Prime Minister: As I was explaining to the right hon. Gentleman, it was for reasons of the national interest that we made our decision in relation to monetary union and it is because it was in the national interest that we reached that view.

Mr. Leslie: Does my right hon. Friend agree that anyone who is truly serious about welfare reform will welcome the Government's moves to introduce a national minimum wage, which would target help on those who are in work but on the lowest incomes and give them the protection that they really need?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is right. A national minimum wage both helps people on very low pay and means that the taxpayer does not end up subsidising them to such a vast extent as happened under the previous Government. Some £3 billion a year or more goes towards subsidising low pay. A minimum wage is part of any decent civilised society and it exists in countries with lower unemployment rates than Britain—notably the United States and Japan. I very much hope that, as the Conservatives appear to be changing their minds about many things, they will change their minds about this as well.

Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith: Is the Prime Minister aware that it is difficult for people to have any confidence in the Government's handling of pensions, especially in view of what he has said today and of the swingeing pension tax that has been imposed, which affects not only thousands of individuals throughout the country but local authorities? East Sussex faces a bill of £800,000 to £1 million. Will he make a commitment to the House that those who qualify for pensions in the future will not have their pension reduced or withdrawn? The best way to encourage people to take out a second-tier pension is to give that firm commitment today.

The Prime Minister: Our proposals on pensions will help people. For example, the stakeholder pension


proposed by the Department of Social Security will help many people gain access to second pensions that they cannot get at the moment. It is precisely to encourage people to take out pensions that are properly regulated and secured—as they were not under the previous Government—that we have introduced our proposals. I do not believe that the proposals will have an adverse effect on pensions.

Mr. Peter Bradley: Is my right hon. Friend aware of Conservative Members' failure to take the opportunity in an Adjournment debate this morning to condemn the wrongdoing perpetrated in Westminster by Shirley Porter? Is he aware that, in the House on 9 May 1996, the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), and the then Secretary of State for the Environment, the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), pledged that once the matter had been through the courts and those involved had been found guilty they would unreservedly condemn the malefactors? Will my right hon. Friend condemn the malpractice and invite those right hon. Members' successors—the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler)—to do the same?

The Prime Minister: An undertaking was given that if the findings were adverse there would be condemnation. We have never heard a word from the Conservative party, but then we never do on any such issues.

Mr. Swayne: Who is affluent? How does the Prime Minister intend to encourage affluence at the same time as testing for it—or is that just another hoax call?

The Prime Minister: The best way to encourage people to be aspirational and to do better is to have a steady, stable economy, which we are running; to put investment into schools, which we are doing; and to play our full part in European affairs, which we are also doing. What a contrast that is with the rabble who used to be in government and whom the hon. Gentleman now supports.

Dr. Starkey: On a recent visit to Woodhill prison in my constituency, I was dismayed to discover that more than one in three prisoners had literacy problems and even more had numeracy problems. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that underlines the importance of the numeracy task force recommendations to which he has already alluded and that additional measures need to be taken for older children and young adults who have been failed by the education system?

The Prime Minister: There is certainly a link between educational underachievement and later delinquency and crime. Indeed, reports and studies, especially in the United States, have shown the connection between good nursery education and law-abiding citizenship later in life. That is precisely one of the reasons we are making such an investment in education and why we are running the literacy and numeracy summer schools that have already had a dramatic impact in helping some children. That provision is to be increased dramatically next year. If we

get to the stage at which people are reaching their full potential, we will have a far better chance of creating the decent society that we want.

Mr. Garnier: Will the Prime Minister give me a figure for the level of disposable income that he and the Secretary of State for Social Security have agreed constitutes affluence?

The Prime Minister: No. As the hon. and learned Gentleman knows, we are conducting a welfare review and when the proposals of that review are available they will be discussed and consulted on. The principle is to get money to those who need it most and ensure that we reform our welfare system so that we avoid what exists at the moment: spending is going up massively, but so is poverty. If we can avoid that, it will be well worth doing, but the details of the proposals will be disclosed after the review has been conducted.

Mr. Winnick: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I received a telephone call today—it was certainly not a hoax—from the Leader of the Opposition's office telling me about my supplementary question and asking if I would like to go to a meeting at 12.15 pm? Since the Leader of the Opposition clearly wants my advice, would it be in line with Government policy if I told him, now or at any time in the future, that the £1 million given to the Tory party by a drug dealer should be donated to a charity immediately and that the stolen £350,000 from Asil Nadir—

Madam Speaker: Order. The first part of the hon. Gentleman's question was amusing to the whole House, but the Prime Minister has no responsibility for the funding of the Conservative party.

Mr. Winnick: I asked whether it is Government policy that the Leader of the Opposition should return the money. May I ask the Leader of the Opposition—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] May I ask the Prime Minister whether he agrees that it is essential that all donations above a certain figure—£5,000 should be the minimum—should be identified and that the law should be changed as quickly as possible so that drug money and stolen money may not be received by any party in the House of Commons?

The Prime Minister: I am sorry that my hon. Friend was mistaken for a Conservative by the Leader of the Opposition's office. One would think that they have so few they know who they are. The Neill committee will investigate those matters and consider what recommendations it should make. I do not have responsibility for the £1 million, but I should have thought that it should be returned. In any event, I notice that the Conservative party has still not published its accounts, despite having promised to do so six months ago.

Mr. Greenway: During Welsh questions, the Secretary of State for Wales told the House that, in his view, agriculture is facing its biggest crisis this century. The 650,000 people who signed the petition about the crisis in farming, which was delivered to 10 Downing street yesterday, clearly agree. Does the Prime Minister agree and, if so, what does he intend to do about it?

The Prime Minister: I certainly agree that there is a serious situation for farmers at present, which is why the


Government, before Christmas, gave several million pounds in help to them—[HON. MEMBERS: "Several?"] Actually, it was more than £80 million, which is a considerable sum. One of the biggest problems that the farmers face is not being able to export their beef, and the fault for that lies with the previous Government who gave us BSE. I understand the difficulties and we are discussing them with farmers. We will continue to do what we can, but there are no easy options and certainly no inexpensive options. This Government must consider the full range of demands that are made on us.

Dr. Ladyman: Does the Prime Minister share my concern that Saddam Hussein almost certainly now has substantial stockpiles of nerve gas and may even have the capacity to construct an atomic weapon? How can we establish an effective system of inspection that can reassure all of us that such weapons are not in his possession?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend raises the very reason why it is important that the inspectors can do their work. This is not merely some machismo battle between the United Nations, or the United States and Britain, and Saddam Hussein. The inspectors are there precisely because the capability of weapons of mass destruction was being developed by Saddam Hussein; he may still be developing it and it must be stopped. The UN resolutions are clear: Saddam Hussein should be allowing the inspectors in. It is not for him to dictate the terms of the inspection. The inspection must be carried out as the inspectors want so that Saddam Hussein is prevented from developing weapons of mass destruction and the world is made safer. That is an important objective for the whole of the world community to attain.

Mr. St. Aubyn: Given that hon. Members have the right to know whether the senior tax collector in this country is under investigation by special officers of the Inland Revenue, will the Prime Minister tell the House now whether the Paymaster General is currently the subject of an investigation by the Inland Revenue's special compliance office?

The Prime Minister: That is just a crude attempt to smear. Conservative Members know perfectly well that neither the Inland Revenue nor any other regulatory body can comment on investigations, whether or not they are being carried out. The Conservatives alleged that my hon. Friend the Paymaster General had avoided UK tax. He has avoided none. They then alleged that he broke House of Commons rules. He has not. They are continuing to do that because they know the previous Government's reputation and are determined to say that all politicians are the same. They are not.

Bloody Sunday

Mr. Godman: When he last met the Taoiseach to discuss matters relating to the issue of a review or a public inquiry into Bloody Sunday; and if he will make a statement.

The Prime Minister: I last met the Taoiseach on 12 December in the margins of the European Council meeting in Luxembourg and we have spoken on the telephone regularly since then, including on the issue of

Bloody Sunday. I recognise that the pain and distress of 30 January 1972 still exist after 26 years; we have a duty to address that. The mass of material prepared by the Irish Government has required thorough examination by more than one Government Department. We hope to be in a position to make a statement on it soon.

Mr. Godman: Does the Prime Minister agree that to end that dreadful affair, in the interests both of the families of those killed and of wider public confidence, an inquiry should be held sooner rather than later and its overriding aim must be to uncover the truth? Does he also agree that the families of those killed neither demand nor seek revenge or the prosecution of the soldiers concerned? They demand, rightly and properly, the uncovering of the truth of that awful day, which can best be achieved by an inquiry.

The Prime Minister: I understand the strong feelings of the relatives of those killed on Bloody Sunday. I know how strongly my hon. Friend feels about this issue. Like many others, he has a long-standing interest in Northern Ireland. However, it would not be right to pre-empt the statement that we shall make. I assure him that we are investigating all the evidence submitted to us very carefully and will make a judgment based on the facts.

Rev. Martin Smyth: I understand the Prime Minister's concern to take matters quietly, calmly and logically. However, when speaking with the Taoiseach, has he asked for an apology from, and even an investigation into, those who armed and financed the Provisional IRA in the early days? Given that others are asking for an inquiry into so-called Bloody Sunday, has he had anything like an apology from those who commissioned and commanded Bloody Friday in Belfast, when innocent citizens were murdered?

The Prime Minister: Many innocent people on both sides have been murdered over the years in Northern Ireland and those who are responsible for the killing should show remorse—of course they should. That should happen whatever circumstances gave rise to the killing. We shall examine carefully the evidence that has been submitted to us. That is our duty as a Government. The hon. Gentleman will know that we are looking at how to have a proper monument to the victims of violence and the killings in Northern Ireland. We are well aware that that has happened on both sides.

Engagements

Mr. Hammond: Will the Prime Minister accept that there is a contradiction at the heart of the Government's employment policy? The Government propose a welfare-to-work programme that is based on the premise that lowering employment costs creates jobs, yet they are imposing a minimum wage that will increase employment costs while claiming that that will not destroy jobs.

The Prime Minister: I do not accept that there is a contradiction; I think that both have their place in a proper employment strategy. It is right that we target help on young people and the long-term unemployed and give them the skills and, occasionally, the job subsidies they


require to get into work with employers. It is equally right that we ensure that there is some floor beneath which wages cannot fall. If the hon. Gentleman says that that is inconsistent with good job creation, he can look at the example of the United States, where a minimum wage is in place and there has been enormous growth in jobs—as there has in many other countries where people simply do not see, as I do not, that job creation and decent conditions of employment are inconsistent objectives. The hon. Gentleman's view is out of date, it is wrong and it is not the view of the Government.

Ministerial Visit

Mr. Donohoe: When he next expects to visit Ayrshire.

The Prime Minister: I have no immediate plans to do so.

Mr. Donohoe: That is a great pity because we are currently celebrating the birth of the greatest poet in the land—Robert Burns. Perhaps next year my right hon. Friend will come up and attend one of our Burns suppers.
A more burning issue is the situation regarding air traffic control and the delay in the signing of the contract. Will my right hon. Friend use his good offices to hurry along the Departments in which the decisions are to be taken so that the contract can be begun, and begun very soon?

The Prime Minister: I hope that I shall be able to visit my hon. Friend's constituency at some point. I simply say to him that the matters to which he refers are being proceeded with at the moment. Those involved are making as much haste as they possibly can, but complicated issues have to be considered. They want to consider the issues with all proper dispatch, but with due care as well.

Point of Order

Mr. Bernard Jenkin: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Before we discuss the Scotland Bill next week, would you consider giving a ruling on how procedures in this House will continue to operate when the Bill becomes law? That is because, depending on your ruling, the House may well consider it prudent to amend the Bill.
The Government White Paper, "Scotland's Parliament", proclaims:
The UK Parliament is and will remain sovereign in all matters".
That would seem to imply that the Government do not intend Parliament to limit its own authority in any way by the Scotland Bill. However, the Scotland Bill does not contain any explicit sovereignty clause like the words used in section 75 of the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which are reflected in one of our amendments. Despite the provisions of the Government of Ireland Act, your predecessor in 1923 made a ruling:
With regard to those subjects which have been delegated to the Government of Northern Ireland, questions must be asked of Ministers in Northern Ireland, and not in this House."—[Official Report, 3 May 1923; Vol. 163, c. 1624–25.]
That ruling led to a curious situation which, if replicated here, would be totally anomalous. We could ask questions of the Secretary of State for Defence about health facilities in Bosnia, or the Secretary of State for International Development about housing circumstances in Montserrat, but we could not ask about those matters in part of our own country. At the same time, Members of the Scottish Parliament will have the power to question cross-border bodies such as the new Food Standards Agency, which is not their responsibility or answerable to them; and they will be able to criticise their own Ministers on their attitudes and actions towards our UK responsibilities. Surely Members of this House should have the same reciprocal rights. Would it seriously be acceptable to rule that Ministers are not accountable for grants made to the Scottish Parliament in the same way as Ministers are accountable for grants made to local authorities and other public bodies?
Finally, Madam Speaker, page 297 of "Erskine May" reports that a procedures Committee ruled that you are not bound by previous precedents in this matter.

Madam Speaker: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of this matter. He raises a most interesting point, but I am not in a position to give a ruling at the present time. The Scotland Bill is now before the Committee of the whole House, and when all the parliamentary processes are completed, I will give full consideration to the impact of the legislation as enacted on our practice regarding the acceptability of parliamentary questions. At that time I shall give any ruling that may be required, but for the moment the legislation is in the hands of the House, and it must go through the due process in the first instance.

Acquisition and Possession of Air Weapons (Restriction)

Dr. Nick Palmer: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Firearms Act 1968 to restrict the acquisition and possession of air weapons; and for connected purposes.
This is a straightforward Bill. It has been kept simple deliberately in view of the nature of ten-minute Bills and the necessity of achieving a broad consensus.
The current law basically allows anyone to possess an airgun from the age of 14. The Bill proposes to raise the minimum age to 17. I should like to acknowledge the help of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Cat Protection League, the National Canine Defence League and the British Veterinary Association in drafting the Bill and discussing how it should be formulated.
I should like to persuade the House of three things that should be the prerequisites of any new legislation. I should like to persuade it, first, that there is a problem worth addressing; secondly, that the Bill will help to do that; and, thirdly, that the Bill does not go further than necessary—I am particularly mindful of the concerns of farmers and sportsmen who have legitimate uses for airguns.
The problem is that large numbers of domestic animals are shot each year—cats, dogs, horses, songbirds and even swans. Every year, 10,000 cats alone are killed or maimed, which is equivalent to more than 30 every day. Even hon. Members who do not particularly like cats and dogs will appreciate that such attacks are causing a great deal of heartbreak to our constituents.
The police are a significant target for attacks. In the past few years, one police officer was killed and another 7,000 injured by airgun attacks. Last but not least, children and even babies are targets. In a recent case, a 14-week-old baby in a carry-cot was shot by a 14-year-old youth. Such attacks on children are usually carried out by other children. There are also frequent reports of children who suffer self-inflicted injuries, often accidental. I hope that hon. Members will agree that the problems are such that it is reasonable to seek some redress.
The second question that arises is whether the Bill will help to overcome the problem. We have overwhelming evidence to suggest that most airgun attacks are carried out by adolescent urban hooligans, who are running wild. We do not hear of farmers or sportsmen shooting at policemen, children or passing cats. The problem is a sub-culture that has developed in certain parts of our cities, which believes that it is fun and amusing to buy an airgun and take pot-shots.
When the adolescent reaches the age of 17 or older, we normally find that he—it is usually a "he"—develops other interests. Hon. Members may not necessarily approve of all those either, but such teenagers tend to be no longer interested in airguns and shooting at passers-by and passing animals. Representatives of the organisations to whom I have spoken are convinced that the Bill would make a significant impact on the problem, because we could remove such weapons from young teenagers aged between 14 and 17. To put it simply, I must ask whether we want our children to go around the streets with guns of any kind.
The third issue, which is perhaps the most important in this context because the Bill is dependent upon the good will of hon. Members on both sides of the House, is the legitimate concerns of farmers and sportsmen. I know that following the passage of the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997, which I supported, many sportsmen felt that their lives had been made more difficult because of the actions of a small number of people. I have spoken to sportsmen who were worried that the Bill would be another step in that direction and another step towards the nanny state. However, when they heard that the Bill was aimed only at 14 to 17-year-olds, and when they understood that target range practice within gun clubs, in the Army and at fairgrounds would still be legal, including for younger age groups, and that the Bill contained no new restrictions on owners of airguns who were over the age of 17, I found universal acceptance that the Bill would reduce the hooligans' dependence on weaponry. They accepted that the Bill would enable the legitimate users of airguns to avoid being besmirched with accusations of hooliganism towards innocent people and animals in our cities.
Many lobbyists and other people to whom I have spoken have urged me to go further and to propose a licensing law and a presumption against licensing in urban areas. I believe that we should give this targeted legislation a chance and limit the restriction to 14 to 17-year-olds. If that proposal is accepted, I shall call for a stop on any further measures until we have had time to see the effects of the Bill and whether it alone can solve most of the problem.
In summary, the Bill proposes a reduction in the wholesale slaughter of family pets, the massive injuries to the police and the epidemic of accidents and deliberate wounding up and down the country. It is a targeted Bill, which will not inconvenience any legitimate user in clubs or on farms. I ask for House for its support.

Mr. Andrew Robathan: I am sure that the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer), who spoke very well if I might say so, is well intentioned, but we are not talking about wholesale slaughter of family pets or massive injuries to the police. We might all agree that he has overstated his case. We see here the manifestation of the new Labour party's tendency to ban or restrict everything that it does not like.
The hon. Gentleman referred to those who supported his Bill, but he did not say whether anyone else wanted the restriction. Certainly, the police do not want it. The police tend to be anti-gun, but the Association of Chief Police Officers in its evidence to the Select Committee on Home Affairs in 1996 said that further controls on possession of air weapons were not required.
It is certainly not my constituents who want the measure, if my postbag is to be believed. I am pretty sure that in the past six years I have never received a letter from a constituent or a lobbying letter asking for a restriction on air weapons. I accept that a few of the hon. Gentleman's constituents may have written to him.
Let us quickly examine the facts. The hon. Gentleman brought many statistics into the argument, and the facts are more interesting. The current legislation is firm and

stringent. If any person, young or old, shoots a protected bird with an airgun or any other weapon, he may be fined up to £5,000. That is a fairly serious amount of money. Anyone aged between 14 and 17 who has an airgun in his possession and is not properly supervised may be fined up to £1,000. The hon. Gentleman spoke about stopping children walking our streets with air weapons. If a child between the ages of 14 and 17 walks about with an air weapon that is not properly encased, he can be fined £1,000. Children are not allowed to have airguns on the street. It is a question of enforcement of the law, not a change in the law.
There are perhaps 4 million air weapons in the country at the moment. They are not powerful enough to qualify as a firearm. Such weapons are kept at home. How will this marvellous legislation stop people getting hold of air weapons? They probably have air weapons illegally now. A more important statistic is that, in this country, between 1 million and 4 million illegally held firearms are used in crime. That is conjecture of course, but I understand that, in 1996, the Home Office published figures that alleged that about 1.7 million illegally held firearms are used.
In October, the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) suggested that he wanted all airguns to be banned, and he suggested it again to the Minister of State, Home Office, the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael), at oral questions. Many Labour Members support the hon. Member for Wakefield, but the hon. Member for Broxtowe said that he particularly did not want that.
I view this as new Labour at work. It is restricting or banning anything that it does not want, saying, "As Labour does not want to do it, you shall not be allowed to do it." That is the political correctness of 1998. It is the nanny state run amok.
The Bill would stop children using airguns, yet, at the same time, because of political correctness, Labour wants to reduce the age of homosexual consent, which is a much more important matter. Many young people enjoy using air weapons for target shooting. I did it as a boy and I was supervised. The hon. Member for Broxtowe will know that, in 1996, British disabled shooters won gold and silver medals in the Atlanta paralympics in air target shooting events and set new world records.
I shall not force the Bill to a Division because I know that the House would rather move on to other matters, but I want the public to know that not every hon. Member supports the Bill. Indeed, should it be taken any further, it will be opposed. Let those who pursue their harmless and legally recognised activities and hobbies—young, old, disabled and able-bodied—carry on so doing.

Mr. Alan Clark: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I would have appreciated the opportunity to set some of the balance right from the Conservative Benches and to have supported the Bill—indeed, I am one its sponsors. I asked your secretary, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether that was legitimate—I had the permission of the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) to speak on the Bill. I was told that under no circumstances was it possible for another hon. Member to speak on a ten-minute Bill and that there is no provision in the Standing Orders to do so. Now I find that my


hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan), with practically all of whose arguments I disagree, has been allowed to put his case.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): Order. I cannot allow the right hon. Gentleman to go on too long. The hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) put his case because I called him to speak. It is as simple as that. I do not know what conversation took place between the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Clark) and an official of the House.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. One of the reasons why the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Clark) was able to rise on a point of order is simply that, many years ago, the practice in the House used to be that any hon. Member who opposed a ten-minute Bill, so as not to waste Parliament's time, was expected to follow his voice with his vote. The hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) supposedly opposed the Bill, but said in his concluding remarks that he would not vote against it.
That is why the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea has a case. He said that he would have liked to have his two penn'orth on the Bill and that he had been told by the Clerk's Department that he could not, yet another Tory Member has supposedly opposed the Bill, but then not really opposed it.
That is why we should get back to the old system. When it was in place, anyone who opposed a ten-minute Bill had to call out at the end that he opposed it. An anomaly has been created.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is an expert on the procedures of the House, and he also knows how to change the procedures. I am bound by the rules of the House as they are at present, so allow me to put the Question.
Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 23 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business), and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Dr. Nick Palmer, Mr. Alan Clark, Liz Blackman, Mr. Vernon Coaker, Mrs. Fiona Jones, Mr. Roger Gale, Mr. Barry Gardiner, Mr. Michael Jabez Foster, Mr. Mark Todd, Mr. Chris Mullin and Mr. Ivor Caplin.

ACQUISITION AND POSSESSION OF AIR WEAPONS (RESTRICTION)

Dr. Nick Palmer accordingly presented a Bill to amend the Firearms Act 1968 to restrict the acquisition and possession of air weapons; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 6 February, and to be printed [Bill 112].

Orders of the Day — Government of Wales Bill

[2ND ALLOTTED DAY]

Considered in Committee [Progress, 20 January].

[MR. MICHAEL J. MARTIN in the Chair]

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 1

ASSEMBLY CONSTITUENCIES AND ASSEMBLY ELECTORAL REGIONS

Mr. Richard Livsey: I beg to move amendment No. 19A, in page 70, line 11, leave out 'four' and insert 'six'.

The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Michael J. Martin): With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 188, in page 72, line 12, leave out '(where appropriate)'.
No. 187, in line 13, after 'geographic', insert 'demographic, social or cultural'.
No. 71, in line 16, leave out 'one half' and insert 'three quarters'.
No. 72, in line 17, leave out from 'by' to end of line 18 and insert
'four) either three quarters of the highest number which is less than that total number and exactly divisible by four or the number produced by adding one to three quarters of that highest number'.

Mr. Livsey: It is my privilege to speak to the amendments. The Liberal Democrats have tabled amendment Nos. 19A, 71 and 72. Amendment No. 19A, which is also supported by members of Plaid Cymru, increases the number of seats in each electoral region from four to six. That increases the number of Members sitting in the Welsh assembly from 60 to 70. Amendment No. 71 adjusts the figures in the schedule so that the number of electoral region Members is three quarters of the number of constituency Members, and that, in effect, increases from 60 to 70 the number of Members in the assembly. Amendment No. 72 provides for an increase in the number of constituencies to a number that is not exactly divisible by four, so the highest number of constituencies that is divisible by four is used in this case.
The amendments are obviously linked to the additional member system proposed by the Government—they propose to use a version of the additional member system. AMS is a hybrid based on two elements; here I acknowledge the Electoral Reform Society brief. Each constituency would elect one representative by the first-past-the-post system. In Wales, there will be 40 single-Member constituencies, matching the 40 Welsh Westminster constituencies. Additional Members will be elected from a closed party list and used to correct the disproportionate effects of the first-past-the-post element. There will be 20 additional Members, four from each of the five old European constituencies that make up the new electoral regions. In the European elections of 1999, Wales will be a single Euro-constituency.
In the traditional model, as used in Germany and New Zealand, about the same number of Members are elected from the list as from the constituency element. Unlike most additional member systems, the Welsh assembly system will not have a national tabulation, but will aim to be proportional in the electoral regions. Integral to that system is the fact that each voter will have two votes, one for the constituency Member, and the other for the closed party list. One of the main arguments used against that form of AMS is the closed nature of the party list, but that is the subject of a later amendment.
The amendments have the effect of increasing the number of top-up Members from 20 to 30, and the total number of assembly Members from 60 to 70. When working up its policy on a Welsh assembly, the Labour party originally proposed 80 seats for the assembly, but eventually had to reduce that to 60—we suspect to appease old Labour Members who do not support PR.
An increased number of Members would, first, result in a more proportional assembly in terms of the percentages of votes cast for the Members elected. Secondly, the regions will feel that they have more representation in Cardiff, Swansea or wherever than they would under a 40:20 split. What is more, there need to be more Members to service all the committees adequately. I draw the Minister's attention to the comment by the Institute of Welsh Affairs to the effect that an 80-Member assembly would be needed to serve all the committees adequately.
The Electoral Reform Society briefing includes figures to show that, with more Members per region, the system would be nearer true proportionality.

Mr. Michael Ancram: Why do we need more politicians in the Welsh assembly, when the hon. Gentleman appears—judging by the empty Benches around him—to be doing his job completely on his own?

Mr. Livsey: The right hon. Gentleman is slightly over-simplifying. I am just trying to improve what is basically a good Bill, and to make it more democratic. That should be the right hon. Gentleman's aim as well. It would certainly benefit his party if there were 10 more Members. Our concern, however, is to have slightly more representatives for north and mid-Wales. The referendum no vote was quite strong in some of those areas, and Welsh people feel that they would like to be more involved in the running of the assembly, to make it more inclusive and to allow it to take account of the higher no vote in some areas.

Mr. Allan Rogers: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting some deviation from the general principle of relating the number of elected representatives to the number of people whom they represent? Does he perhaps think that Members should be elected on the basis of how many acres, or trees, or cows, or sheep they represent? I know that the Liberal Democrat party has adopted its recent position since losing power many years ago, when it did nothing about the electoral system, and now wants to reform it—but I am not sure whom the hon. Gentleman wants these Members to represent.

Mr. Livsey: I cannot take that entirely seriously. The hon. Gentleman will know that the original leader of the

Labour party, Keir Hardie, also espoused proportional representation when he represented Merthyr Tydfil. Something has happened to his party's policy during the century. If representation were based on acres, there would be many more people than me standing here, as I represent the third largest constituency in Britain in terms of acres.
Our argument is that there must be enough Members to service the assembly properly and to bring greater democracy. The Institute of Welsh Affairs called for an 80-Member assembly. We do not go that far, but the IWA's arguments for a larger assembly still apply to our amendment, which calls for a 70-seat assembly.
The IWA argues that the number of committees created by the Bill requires a larger number of Members. The Bill creates at least six sets of statutory committees and bodies, all of which will require assembly Members. It is likely that the assembly itself will also have four regional committees. That is food for thought, when we consider how to use effectively the Members of the assembly to get good, decisive results from those important committees.
There are to be subject committees, audit committees and the executive committee, which is likely to consist of the chairs or leaders of those committees—possibly, if we accept other amendments, in some kind of Cabinet arrangement. We need proper scrutiny of subjects relevant to the regions of Wales, and of subsidiary legislation, for example, and a local government partnership council as well. There is much constructive work to be done by the Welsh assembly.
The arguments for increasing the number of Members are strong, as 1 hope that I have demonstrated. Important issues are involved. The amendment will achieve greater democracy in the Welsh assembly, and make it more efficient and more effective, in the interests of the people of Wales.

4 pm

Mr. Ted Rowlands: I listened assiduously to yesterday's debate on clause 2. Despite the fact that the Liberals and the nationalists moved amendments, I detected an underlying triangular consensus between the Government, the Liberals and the nationalists on the electoral system and its purpose, which was to create a sense of inclusiveness and a means of expressing a plurality of views and opinions in the assembly.
I hope that that spirit of plurality of views can be extended to our present debate, that I can participate in the expression of a plurality of thought on the schedule, and that the tolerance sought for the new assembly will be extended to us.
I find the schedule and the electoral arrangements proposed in it one of the least satisfactory features of the Bill. That is not because, as the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Livsey) suggested, we are old-fashioned people with an aversion to proportional representation. I believe that there may be a case for PR, but I have a different fear, which strangely was not expressed in any of the interesting and detailed contributions to the debate yesterday.
I fear that the electoral system proposed in the schedule, and the consequential assembly that will be created, will at best be a recipe for confusion, and at worst build in serious conflict between elected assembly Members and Westminster Members.
There should be consensus in the Committee that we desperately need an assembly that will co-operate with Westminster. We do not want to build in, through legislation or our electoral system, potential conflict. Rather, we would like the highest co-operation between the assembly and Westminster. However, I fear that the arrangements in the schedule for the method of election will build in a system of potential conflict between Westminster and assembly Members.
Whenever I have listened to or taken part in debates on electoral reform, it has been interesting to see that, somehow, politicians suspend their natural political instincts or sense. We get very involved in the loving detail about whether it is a single transferable vote or the additional member system. With the exception of my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies), one question was not asked very often yesterday: how will it work? What will be the political chemistry of the system that we are devising in the schedule? How will the proposed electoral arrangements work in terms of the relationships between assembly Members elected under this system and Westminster Members? If we are brewing a possible conflict between the two, we should think twice and think hard about what we are doing.
We did not ask those questions yesterday because we became wrapped up in whether STV was better than the additional member system. We did not exercise a bit of old-fashioned political sense about our own political experience, and about how the system may or may not work on the ground if we agree the schedule. By modelling two thirds of the assembly—as the schedule suggests—on the Westminster single-Member seat, one is starting to build in the first element of conflict between, for example, the Members of Parliament for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, for Caerphilly, for Rhondda, for Llanelli and elsewhere at Westminster, and the assembly Member elected for an identical geographical constituency area.

Mr. Rogers: My hon. Friend has introduced a powerful point. I speak from experience. Some years ago, I was elected as the member of the European Parliament for south-east Wales, and covered 10 Westminster constituencies, across the area from the Rhondda down to Chepstow. The relative roles of the Member of the European Parliament and the Westminster Member are quite amazing. In two constituencies, which will remain nameless, when I was invited to attend a meeting, the local Member of Parliament said that he would not attend because he did not recognise the European Parliament. That was a constitutional issue, but there was an element of conflict. The second element of conflict was his assertion that a particular subject had more to do with Westminster than Europe. My hon. Friend is right to draw that potential conflict to the attention of the Committee.

Mr. Rowlands: What will happen when two Members sit for the same area and claim to speak with exactly the same voice, and have the same authority from the same electorate? What will happen if those Members have strikingly different opinions on a particular issue?

Sir Raymond Powell: My hon. Friend will be aware that I proposed that there should be seats for 40 women and 40 men. That would represent 40 parliamentary constituencies in Wales, which would

alleviate any possibility of introducing proportional representation. My hon. Friend made a point about representation. If a man and a woman were elected for one parliamentary seat and had conflicting interests, who should speak on behalf of the constituents whom they represent? I am glad that he thought of it.

Mr. Rowlands: My hon. Friend tempts me, but at this stage in the presentation of my case I do not want to be drawn into the gender debate. I want to confine myself to the fact that the schedule may lead to the sort of conflict that I have described between the assembly Member and the Westminster Member, both elected to the same geographical constituency.
The situation is then given a bit of a twist by the interesting and curious situation of the four Members of no fixed constituency abode in each of the five European constituencies, wandering around within the European dimension, each of whom may speak for Merthyr and Rhymney, Caerphilly, Rhondda or wherever, claiming equal validity for their opinions and beliefs.
It is a curious mix. Instead of going into the minutiae of one representational system or another, let us run the system in the schedule through a couple of scenarios. It would be a good idea, and a very with-it idea, to play a devolution war game, running some of the worst scenarios through the electoral system in the schedule to see what our political instincts tell us will happen in certain circumstances.
For example, there may be a closure of a popular local school or hospital, or the reorganisation of a trust, something of which the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths), had vivid first-hand experience only last weekend, or a contentious opencast proposal. Whatever else, the system in the schedule will create a wonderful democratic bidding for opposition to such schemes. However much one is on the same side, in the same party or the best of friends, the system is guaranteed to lead to some kind of democratic bidding on contentious local issues of one kind or another.

Mr. John Smith: But surely there is nothing unusual about that. I bow to the experience of my hon. Friend who has been in politics for much longer than I have, but that happens at every level of politics and surely that diversity has been one of the great strengths of Britain's constitution for many years.

Mr. Rowlands: I am not saying that it does not exist; I am saying that the schedule will intensify it, as a matter not simply of degree but of character. I do not think that my hon. Friend would claim to speak with the same conviction as I on, say, an opencast proposal in Merthyr and Rhymney. But if two of us claim to speak with equal validity on such an issue, the situation will be intensified in a way that we have not thought through. I am not saying that that does not exist now, but the structure in the schedule will produce a hyper-competitive system.

Mr. Rhodri Morgan: As my hon. Friend has been the Member for a Cardiff constituency, although it was a long time ago, and, since then, the Member for a valleys constituency, does his experience fit in with mine? Until 1 May this year, during my


10 years as Labour Member of Parliament for Cardiff, West, surrounded in the Vale of Glamorgan and Cardiff, North by Conservative Members—except for the brief period when my hon. Friend the present Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) won the by-election—if I had had a pound for every phone call that I received from a Labour-supporting constituent in the Vale of Glamorgan or Cardiff, North, claiming that they wanted me to be their constituency Member for a particular purpose because they did not trust their Tory Member of Parliament, I would be a rich man. That is the difficulty.
In an area such as Cardiff or South Glamorgan, where there is party diversity, it would be convenient for Conservatives to be able to go to a Conservative Member of the Assembly and for Labour supporters to go to a Labour Member of the Assembly.

Mr. Rowlands: That is an interesting scenario. Democracy requires competition and therefore choice, as described by my hon. Friend, but we are creating a system in which two people will claim equal right to express the opinions of the same constituency, drawing from the same well of democratic choice. [Interruption.] Shall I arbitrate over the discussion that has broken out behind me?
The issue did not emerge during yesterday's debates, but it seems to have needed an airing. We are hearing some interesting differences of opinion. Of course, there is competition in the current system, but the peculiar electoral structure devised for the assembly will intensify the issues and arguments. That is an inevitable consequence of a dual democratic system, which is what we are devising. We should think of institutional ways—particularly electoral systems—to minimise some of those consequences.
The consequences of what is proposed were not fully explained during the referendum campaign. The Bill substitutes a strong, accountable Executive—the Secretary of State for Wales—with a democratic assembly Executive. They are two different animals. After 30 or more years' experience of watching the Welsh Office and the Secretary of State, I appreciate that my right hon. Friend has one of the finest and most privileged jobs in the Government. Like other hon. Members representing Welsh seats, I would love to have been the Secretary of State for Wales. On many occasions, the Secretary of State has been a successful arbiter over the warring demands of those making representations to him—which includes all of us, in our different ways; we all try to put pressure on him and influence him. The last thing that we should do is change the system on the ground that the Secretary of State for Wales is not accountable. He is accountable in all sorts of ways.
We are replacing a system in which the Secretary of State is an arbiter, at arm's length from the passion in one part of the community, with a democratic alternative, which will behave more as we do when trying to persuade the Secretary of State, rather than acting as a rational Executive.

Mr. Chris Ruane: rose—

Mr. Rowlands: I shall give way in a minute, when I have finished my point.
I am not saying that the change is wrong, but we should identify the interesting and serious problems that will arise from it.
I should like to take my scenario of a school closure, opencast scheme or trust reorganisation through to the decision-making process, but first I shall give way.

Mr. Ruane: Is my hon. Friend saying that the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) was accountable to the people as Secretary of State for Wales when he refused to sleep a night in Wales? What kind of accountability is that? The man had no connection with Wales and no responsibility towards the Welsh people.

Mr. Rowlands: rose—

The First Deputy Chairman: Order. Perhaps this is an appropriate time to tell hon. Members that they must restrict their comments to the amendments, the scope of which is a little tighter than the comments being made.

Mr. Rowlands: I should have loved to be drawn into an answer to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Mr. Ruane), but, in the light of what you have said, Mr. Martin, I shall not be. I am trying to describe the system that will arise and be promoted by the electoral system proposed in the schedule. That is—I hope—the relevance of my remarks.

The First Deputy Chairman: Order. I do not know—it depends on who is in the Chair—but there could be a schedule stand part debate. We are debating amendments to the schedule, which are far more restrictive than the scope of hon. Members' comments. Hon. Members are a wee bit wide of the amendments.

Mr. Rowlands: The amendments, as I understand them, seek to change the proposed single-member constituency arrangements. I am addressing my remarks to the fact that I think that the arrangements need changing—although I do not necessarily agree with the way in which the amendments do it. The sort of scenario that I am describing arises from the electoral structure that the schedule will create. Even if it were changed by the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire, it would still lead to some of the problems that I am describing.
I shall respond directly to the comments of the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire. The schedule creates a total of 100 full-time politicians representing Wales—in the assembly and in Westminster. I noticed that the hon. Gentleman read with great interest the case put by the Institute of Welsh Affairs for an even larger assembly. I do not believe that there are jobs—given the electoral arrangements in the schedule and the 40 full-time Members in Westminster—for 100 full-time politicians in Wales. Therefore, something has to go.
Perhaps the assembly should be as large as is proposed. I considered the way in which functions will be transferred to the assembly. I suspect that about a third of my parliamentary work—the proportion may be different for other Members—would be transferred to the assembly if I adhered strictly to the demarcation line. If that is so, there will be huge, compelling pressure to reduce the size of the representation of Wales in Westminster. That is an


inevitable consequence. Indeed, why should that not be so, given that we are asking everybody else in society to work harder and raise productivity, and that a third of one's parliamentary work is to be lost?
There will be pressure—sadly, even a case—for a reduction in the size of representation of Wales in Westminster, which is of considerable concern. I see everybody nodding—yet we never told the electorate at any time that it was a consequence of the proposals.

Dr. John Marek: I am glad that my hon. Friend spends a third of his time on work that is to be transferred. I seem to spend a third of my time dealing with the Child Support Agency, although I wish that I did not.
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Does he agree that there might be pressure for a reduction in the number of Westminster Members if the proposals go ahead, but that it ought to be resisted because we do not have enough Members to exercise scrutiny? Scrutiny is an important consideration which will be important in the assembly. We need a sufficient number of elected Members of the Assembly to scrutinise matters, and more Members—or at least the same number—in Westminster. Perhaps the proportions could be changed so that England is represented by the right proportion of Members. Nevertheless, scrutiny ought to be one of the principal questions that we address.

Mr. Rowlands: I certainly would not and do not support a reduction in the representation of Welsh Members at Westminster. What I said was that I feared that the pressure would grow. There will be a powerful rationale behind that pressure, because the electoral system that we are creating in the schedule will lead to the competition that I have described.
We shall then have to decide which type of system we want. Would it not be better to change the structure of elections to the assembly in a different way from that in the schedule? Otherwise, I suspect that we shall have to change the nature of the way in which we elect Members to Westminster.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: Assuming that the Boundary Commission operates as we think it will, the Scots' numbers will be reduced under the Scotland Bill. There would be the most dreadful stoochie if the number of Scots Members were reduced but the number of Welsh Members were not.

Mr. Rowlands: I can answer that simply—

The First Deputy Chairman: Order. I point out again that we are very wide of the amendments at the moment. I ask the hon. Gentleman to try to come back to them.

Mr. Rowlands: I appreciate that, Mr. Martin, especially as you sit for a Scottish seat. I shall simply reply briefly to my hon. Friend that there is no such comparison, because the Bills are different and we can therefore make a different case. I can answer his question in simple fashion.

Mr. Dalyell: There would still be a stoochie.

Mr. Ancram: The point arises in the general context of devolution, as well as here in particular.
The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) said that he thought that his work load here would decrease by one third. I am surprised that he thinks that the decrease would be so large, in the case of Wales. Does he not foresee pressure growing, if some Members of Parliament here do only two thirds of what others do, not only for a reduction in numbers but for changing the status of the Member of Parliament at Westminster? Is that not another great concern for Wales? I am not saying that that is what I want to happen, but it is a problem which arises from the legislation, and we have to find a way of dealing with it.

Mr. Rowlands: The pressures will grow. That is the simple point I wanted to bring to the House. They will grow—

Mr. Livsey: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Rowlands: Let me answer the other point first.
The pressures will grow because of the curious structures that we have decided to include in the schedule, which introduces a dual democratic system in which two thirds of the new assembly will be elected on exactly the same constituency basis as is used for Westminster.
The point I was making is that the schedule will then have set up a competitive structure. It would be far preferable to devise an electoral structure that did not intensify the competitive element between the assembly and Westminster, but emphasised as best we can the complementary element. That has been the burden of my case, and I hope that I have kept in order, within the scope of the schedule, to argue it.

Mr. Rhodri Morgan: My hon. Friend should not be too deterministic about saying that one third of his work will probably transfer to the one or two Members of the Assembly who represent Merthyr. In my experience, by virtue of the Acts that the House has passed even during the 10 years that I have been a Member, there has been a huge increase in the volume of work, all of which would, as it happens, remain with Westminster.
The Child Support Agency, which my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) mentioned, is one example; the disability living allowance, dating from 1992, is another; the increasing complexity of immigration procedures is a third. All have meant a massive increase in my work load as a constituency Member of Parliament, and all that work will remain with Westminster. Furthermore, who knows what other Acts the House may pass to increase the burdens on constituency Members?

Mr. Rowlands: We all have a common experience of the increase in the work load as a result of the changes that my hon. Friend mentions. That is what we do now, and we get paid for it. It is a privilege to do that work; it is the greatest privilege of all to be the Member of Parliament for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney.
I am saying to my hon. Friend that, nevertheless, by the very nature of things, I spend a great deal of my time dealing with matters connected with the host of functions and responsibilities of the Secretary of State. Those will all be transferred to the assembly, which must mean that


a distinct percentage of our existing parliamentary work load will go to the assembly. In fact, I suspect that we shall duplicate that work.
We shall not have a decrease in our work load because we shall probably all do it. Certainly, there will be at least two Members representing exactly the same patch, and I suspect that our constituents will come to both of us.
Our constituents may be doubly represented, and doubly blessed, but I think that that is potentially a huge area for competition and for Members to bid against each other in all sorts of ways on issues that arise both locally and nationally. It should make a significant difference to the role that one plays here if so many of the functions that I find myself speaking about and involved with here are transferred to the assembly.

Mr. Livsey: Surely there is no case for reducing the number of Welsh Members of Parliament here while the Welsh assembly cannot pass primary legislation or raise taxes, because it is here that those functions are carried out.

Mr. Rowlands: That is true. We are here to scrutinise taxation, to decide whether to assent to it and to produce annual legislation; but we do other work as well. I do not know whether any of my colleagues have attempted the same exercise, but I looked at what I had done over the past parliamentary year, and identified a strict demarcation line between the work that would continue to be done at Westminster and that which would be done by the Assembly. I related my constituency and parliamentary work to the functions that would be transferred. If I kept strictly to the demarcation line between Assembly and Westminster work, I suspect that a significant part of my work load would go to the assembly. I fear that people will start arguing that that will happen, and that representation here must therefore be reduced. I do not support such an outcome, but I think that we are building up pressure.

The First Deputy Chairman: Order. What the hon. Gentleman is saying is very interesting, and I am enjoying listening to it, but I am obliged to ask him to stick to the amendment.

Mr. Rowlands: I apologise, Mr. Martin. I blame other hon. Members who keep intervening.

Mr. Nigel Evans: rose—

Mr. Rowlands: I fear that I am going to be tempted again, but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman. I hope that his question will be in order.

Mr. Evans: I will try my best.
When we look at the amendments—I hope that, by mentioning them, I will drag my question into order—we see that it is not just a case of confusion between the hon. Gentleman representing his constituency here at Westminster and the assembly Member representing the same constituency in Cardiff, Swansea or wherever the assembly will end up. There will be another four

regional Members, who will say that they, too, have a right to represent the hon. Gentleman's constituents. Indeed, if amendment No. 19A is passed, there will be six additional Members. That will create enormous confusion.
The hon. Gentleman asks what he will do at Westminster. I think that he will be very busy writing to his fellow Members in Cardiff, Swansea or wherever, and dealing with their replies. There will be an enormous backlog of mail.

Mr. Rowlands: I think that I shall be in order if I reply to the hon. Gentleman.
From the outset, the burden of my case has been simple. The schedule, as it stands—I am not content with the proposed amendments—will create an electoral system that will heighten, or intensify, the competitive element between the assembly and Westminster, and I am therefore not sure that it will create a stable political relationship between them. The electoral system could bring about either greater stability or greater instability.
My difficulty is this. Either my right hon. and hon. Friends should have been bolder and gone for full-blooded proportional representation of one kind or another—the single transferable vote, perhaps—to elect the whole assembly, which would at least have been elected on a very different basis and would not have involved the present hybrid hotch-potch of constituency plus added Members; or they should have said, "We shall need to reform the nature of representation here, and the electoral system allowing Members of Parliament to be sent to Westminster from Wales." We could have had a constituency-based arrangement for the assembly and a PR system for Westminster. What we have done, however, falls between two stools. We have half adopted the combination of single and additional Members, but we have built into that system potentially competitive and conflicting electoral arrangements, which will cause conflict between the assembly and Westminster.

The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Ron Davies): I have listened with care to my hon. Friend's argument, and I know how strongly he feels. Does he regret that he did not argue his persuasive case for an all-embracing system of proportional representation when he and I debated the matter in the Labour party before our policy was established? If he had argued the case then as forcefully as he is doing now—who knows?—he might have won.

Mr. Rowlands: I probably do regret it. My right hon. Friend is right to chide me, in the gentlest possible way. I think that it was a gentle form of chiding. It is true that it has taken me a while to accept that we need some form of PR. Only when I was confronted by this hybrid arrangement did it dawn on me that we might get the worst of both worlds.
We have not had a proper chance to debate the subject. In our examination of the schedule, the flaws have become manifest. I do not support the amendment; but I also do not like the combination of single-member seats and added Members, which will create a dual democratic bidding system that could not lead to good government in Wales.

Mr. Dalyell: Will my hon. Friend reflect on the fact that this might be one of the unsatisfactory aspects of


having had a referendum before the parliamentary discussion? The whole purpose of the parliamentary mangle, or anvil, or whatever one calls it, is to discuss exactly such problems. If the referendum had taken place on a post-legislative basis, with the question, "Do you approve of the Government of Wales Act 1998?", it would have been easier to make satisfactory alterations.

Mr. Rowlands: That might have been so, in that before we got to the referendum we would have had more arguments in the media and much of the discussion would have gone out of society's political bloodstream. That is something which parliamentary debates can achieve.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State rightly chides me for not coming to these conclusions early enough to influence Labour party policy, but the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) would have been more sensible. My right hon. Friend's point is rather an historic one than one on which we can dwell now.

Mr. Gareth Thomas: My hon. Friend may recall that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that he would be prepared to review the electoral system in the light of experience. Will my hon. Friend make at that stage the representations that he is making now, to lift the debate on the issue in Wales? I agree with my right hon. Friend: my hon. Friend's points could have been made during the consultation process.

Mr. Rowlands: I would not presume to be lifting the debate, but I think that we can raise the issues now rather than waiting for a review. I am suggesting that the schedule creates a potentially unstable situation, with a competitive, conflicting bidding structure between Westminster and the assembly. That situation is a direct consequence of the electoral system that we are adopting.
We should think hard about this. I fear that it may be too late to try to recast the schedule to accommodate my views, but it is worth considering. We have not considered the impact of the changes in the Bill on the circumstances in Westminster. We have not really thought through the impact of the changes that will flow from creating a dual democratic structure. We have certainly not argued it through or presented the issues and arguments to the Welsh electorate.

Mr. Rogers: I hope that my hon. Friends will not imagine that we have arrived at the additional members system as a result of a great philosophical debate or a commitment to extending democracy. The Prime Minister, then the Leader of the Opposition, visited Cardiff and it was decided that there would be an element of proportionality. Constituency Labour parties and Members of Parliament were asked to submit views. Some, such as myself, did so, and went to the Labour party executive in Cardiff, where the matter was considered.
I am not suggesting that the system should be changed, but do not imagine that it arrived through any great philosophical decision; it arrived simply because somebody asked what was the least amount of proportionality that we could introduce, and we got lumbered with this. That is the real truth of the matter, and do not let anyone suggest otherwise.

Mr. Rowlands: I appreciate my hon. Friend's observations. Incidentally, if we did not have the

consultations on the matter that we should, I hope that we will consult on the selection process for candidates. However, that issue is not covered in the amendment and I shall leave it there. You may not believe it, Mr. Martin, but I am trying hard to bring my remarks to a conclusion.

Mr. Nick Hawkins: Is not it clear from the intervention by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers)—

Mr. Elfyn Llwyd: The hon. Gentleman has not heard the speech because he has only just come in.

Mr. Hawkins: I have heard the speech. Is it not clear that all that the Bill is about is a good—or rather, bad—old-fashioned Labour party fix?

Mr. Rowlands: I do not think that we need to listen to the remarks of an hon. Member who has only just come in. If I had realised that, I would not have given way to him. He has not had the courtesy to be here for the beginning of the debate or for most of my contribution. I shall try to come to a conclusion and this will be my third attempt to move to a peroration.
I rose to make a simple, but fundamental point. We do not want to create a competitive system between Westminster and the assembly. The schedule and the proposed electoral system will intensify the potential for competition, and that may not be in the best interests of the good governance of Wales. I hope that we will have a review of how the assembly is elected or how this House is elected, because those two issues impact on each other in a way that we have not been honest enough to acknowledge before.

Mr. Llwyd: I shall tread carefully and try to stay within the terms of the debate, but I shall also choose my words carefully because I do not wish to interfere in internal Labour party grief. The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) introduced the West Lothian question. Yesterday, he intervened several times and introduced a new acid test—whether an hon. Member who spoke wished to stand for the assembly. That may be relevant to our debate today, because the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) spoke eloquently about the possibility of seats disappearing from the House for representatives from Wales. I unashamedly admit that I do not care if seats do disappear, because real devolution would inevitably mean that responsibilities would move from this place. As night follows day, that would make the case for a review and for fewer Welsh Members at Westminster. I do not know what there is to fear in that, unless I reverse the argument and suggest that some hon. Members might be concerned about their own jobs in this place, but I shall not get into that argument at this stage.
I wish to support amendment No. 19A tabled by the Liberal Democrats and my hon. Friends, but I shall not speak to it directly because it was moved eloquently by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Livsey). I was interested by the intervention by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) when he said that the Government's proposals amounted to the least proportionality that they could get away with. That must surely make the case for the amendment. The point of


the amendment is not to increase costs, to make jobs for the boys or to make more seats for any party, but to increase proportionality. Academics and people who know more about electoral systems than most hon. Members—including me—have said that the only way to increase proportionality is to increase representation.

Mr. Rogers: The hon. Gentleman should have listened a little more closely to my words because I was explaining why we had arrived at this position. It was a form of criticism of my right hon. and hon. Friends. The Labour party has been extremely generous to its political opponents. The beneficiaries will be Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, who were virtually wiped out in Wales. The Labour party has taken a dramatic step forward in the governance of this country by introducing an element of proportionality. The hon. Gentleman should not criticise the Labour party but should congratulate it on giving its opponents a lifeline.

Mr. Llwyd: I was not criticising the Labour party for introducing the notion; I welcome the notion. I was speaking in support of the amendment, the case for which has been proved.
Amendment No. 188 seeks to delete the words "where appropriate". Clearly, there are always geographical considerations when we are dealing with constituencies, which are, by definition, always special. To include the words "where appropriate" makes evaluation of the geographical considerations merely a side issue, which can never be right. It should always be far more than that.
Amendment No. 188 also has a bearing on a later amendment. The schedule says:
The regional electorate for an Assembly electoral region shall be as near the regional electorate for each other Assembly electoral region as is reasonably practicable, having regard (where appropriate) to special geographical considerations.
The qualifying words "where appropriate" add nothing to that provision. Even if the amendment is accepted, the schedule remains deficient because other important considerations must be taken into account if we are effectively to carve out constituency boundaries.
Amendment No. 187 seeks to insert the words "demographic, social or cultural", which are important criteria. The criteria brought to bear on this issue should be no less comprehensive than those currently used in drawing parliamentary boundaries—those adopted by the boundary commission. It is a grave mistake only to play the numbers game because it produces unhappy, sometimes grotesque, results.
For example, the Wales Mid and West European parliamentary constituency referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Dafis) yesterday is an incredibly unwieldy boundary. To the north, it includes Eglwysbach, a charming little village perched on a hillside just five minutes' drive from the north Wales coast. To the south, it goes as far as Pembrokeshire and Llanelli on the south Wales coast. Thus one European constituency stretches the length of Wales, although it excludes the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Jones). Perhaps we could include that at some stage.
How anyone can suggest that that European constituency is cohesive is beyond my comprehension. It is impossible to manage, which may be why the Labour MEP is making such a mess of it. Unfortunately, the people of the Conwy valley have little in common with the good people of Llanelli. Both are Welsh speaking, but in terms of social outlook and cultural indices, they are quite different and there is little cohesion between the two communities. The boundary commission said that, by putting together the eight parliamentary constituencies, we would reach the magic figure of 500,000, which was all that was necessary. That was a short-sighted and unhelpful approach.
I sincerely hope that the Government will look carefully at the amendment, which is not partisan in any way. It is designed solely to ensure that we have better boundaries and, ultimately, more lasting and better representation.

Mr. Dafydd Wigley: A moment ago, my hon. Friend referred to the words "where appropriate". I invite him and, through him, invite the Government to explain where it would be inappropriate to take such matters into account. If there are circumstances in which it would be inappropriate to do so, the House should know about them.

Mr. Llwyd: That is a good point and I hope that the Minister will deal specifically with it. I submit that the geography of any boundary must always be a special consideration, because we cannot start to look at any boundary without the geography. The wording is deficient and I believe, in a non-partisan way, that the amendment would improve the Bill. I hope that the Minister will respond specifically to my remarks, given that I am specifically addressing the amendment; and, in due course, we might be able to a have a worthwhile debate on the subject.
One of the strengths of Wales is the fact that the whole country is culturally diverse. We must cater as much for those whose cultural life is transacted through the medium of English as for those who live, breathe, work and transact their culture through the medium of Welsh. We are a bilingual nation, so it is important that we consider both languages equally. I am pleased that the Bill makes reference to the equality and parity of both languages. I know that that reference has been included in all sincerity and I welcome it, but such factors must be considered carefully and fully when drawing up boundaries if such boundaries are to last.
I mentioned the importance of demography and geography. We have a diverse country and some areas naturally look to others in terms of market towns, and so forth. In the northern part of my constituency, people in the Conwy valley look toward Llanrwst and Llandudno for shopping and social functions, whereas in the southern part, the people of Meirionnydd feel strongly that they are part of mid-Wales and tend to look in that direction. The Secretary of State goaded me twice during the debates in the Welsh Grand Committee—

Mr. Ron Davies: indicated dissent.

Mr. Llwyd: I do not mean that in a pejorative sense, but the Secretary of State did try to entice me to express


a view on where Meirionnydd should be in the new powerhouse set-up; I understand that no decision has been reached yet. Being a careful person, I answered, "Yes and no". The reason is plain: we in Meirionnydd want to remain in both the mid-Wales set-up and the North Wales training and enterprise council area. I hope that that helps the right hon. Gentleman—it is probably more helpful than my response in the Welsh Grand Committee.

Mr. Davies: That will, of course, be of partial help in my deliberations.

Mr. Llwyd: On a serious note, I have written to the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs, which will make submissions on the subject, and to the Secretary of State to express the overwhelming view that Meirionnydd should stay in the mid-Wales partnership where the powerhouse is concerned, but that it should be allowed to remain within the area of the North Wales TEC. That arrangement has worked perfectly well hitherto and it is the status quo, although it may be in breach of one or two current lines of thought. I urge the Secretary of State to consider that submission, because it is the best arrangement in all circumstances.
In looking at questions of demography and geography, we cannot ignore the important matter of transport links. Often, we look at a map and see that one area apparently lies well with another, but the hills and valleys of Wales mean that the view from the ground may be different. It is important that we bring into the process and take into account local feelings and preferences.
After all, the purpose of the exercise will be to draw boundaries that are acceptable to the people we are proud to serve. We must ensure that we carry their support and we can do that only by guaranteeing that they play a full part in the relevant discussions. When drawing up boundaries, it is, therefore, important that demographic, cultural and social aspects are considered as well as geographical ones.
If our efforts are to succeed, we need boundaries that will be in place for years to come, and which are acceptable to everyone in Wales. If those boundaries are imposed without proper discussions, there is a danger that people in some parts of Wales will feel—wrongly, I believe—that instead of Westminster diktat, they should read Cardiff or Swansea diktat. That is the last thing that any of us would want. That is why it is important that all possible sensibilities are noted and catered for.
In my respectful submission, the amendments are neither revolutionary nor partisan, and they would improve schedule 1. I urge hon. Members to consider them carefully and I hope that the Government will offer me some assurance that the matters I have raised will be considered.

Ms Julie Morgan: I support the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Livsey). It is designed to improve the proportionality element of the additional member system by increasing the number of seats as well as creating more Members to handle the expected amount of work.
In Wales, the ratio will be 40:20, or 2:1, whereas Scotland obviously has a larger element of proportionality. I support AMS not only because it is fair and will probably allow all the major political parties to be represented in the assembly, but because it should also make it easier for women and black people to be elected to it. The political parties have made a commitment to that. If it were possible to have longer lists, it would make the process easier. All countries with some element of proportionality have more women participating in the political system than we have achieved.
We have already discussed how we reached the 40:20 ratio and the fact that we will have 20 additional Members as a result. We must acknowledge that there is some resistance to proportional representation. The proposed arrangements will offer Wales the experience of PR for the first time. Perhaps there is some element of truth in what the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Öpik) said about AMS being the system that we can get away with. It is the first step, and politics is about compromise. We put the AMS proposal to the electorate and campaigned for it in the referendum, so we must keep with it. I accept that AMS makes it more difficult to elect the number of women that want to see in the assembly. That means that responsibility for trying to achieve equal representation will fall heavily on the political parties.

Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: In terms of gender balance and ensuring that we have representatives from the ethnic minorities, does the hon. Lady accept that the point made by her hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) is fact? If the results of the general election, for example, were replicated, the parties represented on the Opposition Benches would probably be allocated a substantial proportion of the additional Members on the list. If those parties want to achieve a gender balance, they can use the regional lists. For the Labour party, however, that exercise would not produce that result. How would the Labour party achieve such gender balance?

Ms Morgan: With regional lists, it will be much easier to get more women elected to the assembly because one could have a list that went one man, one woman, and so on. That would be an easy and acceptable method to use. In the 40 seats in which the first-past-the-post system will operate, the political parties will obviously have to take action within their organisations to ensure the gender balance. The Labour party has already taken steps to do that. I hope that the other political parties will do the same for both first-past-the-post and additional Member seats. I know that Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats are committed to that.
I was surprised yesterday when the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire, who is not here today, said that the Labour party was old-fashioned and unreconstructed. The Liberal Democrat party should perhaps look at its record on gender representation in the House of Commons, which is not of the best—nor is the nationalists'. We rely on them to put it right in the assembly.
The Conservative party also seems to be having second thoughts about gender balance. It now accepts that it is a good thing to have the population as a


whole represented in the House of Commons. We look forward to seeing what it will do when the assembly is set up.

5 pm

Mr. Rowlands: I am following my hon. Friend's remarks with interest. If we cannot achieve gender balance through schedule 1 and the electoral system and will, therefore, have to rely on party devices, will my hon. Friend support maximum consultation with the parties?

The First Deputy Chairman: Order. Perhaps we can get back to the amendments. A brief comment on gender balance is in order, but it is not relevant to go into it in depth on this group of amendments.

Ms Morgan: I think that I have made the point that I wanted to make on numbers. It was particularly in relation to gender balance that I wanted to take up the point made by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire.

Mr. Desmond Swayne: The Committee should be aware that the effect of amendment No. 19A is to make a frightful situation worse, albeit not half as bad as the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) would make it with his recent conversion. The amendment would increase the number of representatives who effectively represented no one but the party hacks who had placed them on the list.
Yesterday, a great deal of attention was given to examples from Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. I ask members of the Committee to consider the effects of the voting systems in those places on representatives and the quality of their representation. I have visited those places and it is instructive to witness the level of anxiety about, for example, economic and monetary union, and open hostility to it. If, however, one speaks to the elected representatives, one finds that they do not represent that deeply held anxiety and hostility. The fact is that they owe their election not to the voters, but to the hacks who put them on the list.

The First Deputy Chairman: Order. I have appealed to almost every hon. Member who has spoken. Hon. Members must speak to the amendment. What the hon. Gentleman is saying has nothing to do with the amendments. We are talking not about accountability to a party, but about representation and how many seats there should be. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could examine the amendment.

Mr. Swayne: Thank you, Mr. Martin. The amendment would increase the quantity of inadequate representation and would, therefore, give the assembly, from its inception, a democratic deficit.

Mr. Rogers: In opposing the amendments, I congratulate my party on introducing its proposals. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) said that there would be conflict if two Members represented one constituency.

Mr. Llwyd: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Rogers: May I speak first? That is the trouble with these gogs.
I have thought seriously about what my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney said. At the beginning, I went along with him, but, on reflection, I believe that his fears may be unjustified and that the two representatives will find a method of working together.
When I was a Member of the European Parliament—the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths), will remember this example—the Davignon plan on steel production was introduced. The European apparatchiks decided to reduce the amount of steel production in this country and the Tory Government decided to cut it over and above what the European Commission had suggested. That introduced both a Westminster and a European dimension to the discussion. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will graphically remember, there were differences between the Members of the European Parliament and hon. Members, but progress was made.
We must remember that, with these amendments, we are talking about constitutional development. This country's constitutional development has been dynamic. If there are points of conflict, they are often the areas where there is more dynamism and where there can be change. On reflection, therefore, the fears of my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney may not be justified, although I imagine that there will be people with small minds who do not particularly want to act in the interests of the people they represent and who will look for that democratic extra in all situations, which does their electors a disservice.
I have criticised some of the Labour party's proposals on the government of Wales for sincere and specific reasons, but it ill behoves Opposition Members to criticise the Labour party. Whether they agree with its proposals or not, what is proposed is a dramatic step forward in the government and constitutional development of this country.
We have had discussions in the Labour party. The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Livsey) talked of old Labour. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams), I like to consider myself classic Labour rather than old Labour. As a democratic party, we have differences of opinion. There was an extensive debate in the Labour party on proportional representation and the number of seats that should be in the assembly, which the amendments address—I mention them before you bring me back to order, Mr. Martin—and we came up with proposals.
The Tories never did. In fact, if the Tories had not mismanaged Wales for 18 years, we would never have had this Bill. As for the Liberals, they were never in favour of such a proposal when they were in power. It was only after they lost power that they wanted proportional representation. Plaid Cymru would catch at any old straw. It is a rag-bag of political ideas—a little bit of this and a little bit of that—and contains the odd journeymen of Welsh politics who box and cox for any position.
The Labour party has made specific and clear suggestions. I do not particularly believe in the extension of proportionality, but it is an honest position. I am going to support it because it is the only game in town. It also has some distinct advantages.
My reservations about the conflicts that my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney said might arise were wiped out as he developed his argument and I considered the situations that he spoke of.
Under the system proposed in the Bill, there will be points of conflict in matters such as education, housing and transport and in the division of the budget—the dispersal of moneys to local authorities. We have not introduced to the equation how local councillors will fit in with their assembly man or woman, Member of Parliament and Member of the European Parliament.
Opposition Members are always bleating about democratic accountability. They will have it coming out of their ears in three or four years' time—it will be pouring out of Wales—so I do not understand why they want to amend decent proposals from Labour Members.

Mr. Robert Syms: I oppose amendment No. 19A. The law of diminishing returns would apply to the assembly. The greater the number of politicians representing Wales, the worse representation people will get: constituents will not get the representation that they deserve.
The creation of another two Members in each multi-Member area would multiply the problems caused by the Bill. As the Bill stands, a constituent with a problem will have a choice: to write to their Member of Parliament—who already represents fewer electors than an hon. Member from elsewhere in the United Kingdom, perhaps 56,000 electors—to write to their Member of the European Parliament, to write to the assembly Member for their constituency or to write to four other assembly Members with some interest in their constituency. Amendment No. 19A would increase the number in the latter group from four to six. The law of diminishing returns would apply. The biggest problem that most assembly Members will have when a constituent comes to see them with a problem will be working out whether the constituent has come to see them only or whether he or she has written to other assembly Members and who else has taken up the case.
We all know from experience that some people come to a Member of Parliament when they have tried everyone else or when they have tried neighbouring Members of Parliament. Sometimes their problem is insoluble. Some individuals in Wales may be given a wonderful opportunity. If the Bill is passed as it stands, such people could visit seven individuals with their problems; if amendment No. 19A is passed, they could visit nine individuals. That is a gross over-representation.

Mr. Ron Davies: While the hon. Gentleman is reflecting on democratic accountability, will he explain how he feels about the present system, in which about one third of a budget of £7 billion is accounted for by the unelected quango state, in which about 100 unelected public bodies, known as quangos, are entirely immune from accountability and scrutiny and in which nearly 1,000 people are appointed to quangos by the Secretary of State without accountability or scrutiny? While the hon. Gentleman is reflecting on how disgruntled constituents should seek redress in a democratic system, will he explain how they can get redress in the present undemocratic system?

Mr. Syms: The argument that I was making had more to do with the structure of the system—the number of representatives. If we had a first-past-the-post system—an issue which the House disposed of yesterday—we would have fewer problems with accountability and fewer

Members running round tackling problems. Of course the Secretary of State is accountable to the House and to the many Welsh Members in the Chamber and Members of the United Kingdom Parliament, many of whom do an excellent job. Wales has not been especially badly represented in the Chamber over the years; it has had many outstanding Members of Parliament.
The key point is that one must look at any constitutional proposal as much from the point of view of ordinary constituents as from that of political parties and Westminster institutions.

Mr. Richard Shepherd: I am astounded by the Secretary of State's extraordinarily denigratory regard for his fellow hon. Members from Wales. They are directly accountable to the constituencies. If he felt that it was appropriate, all those powers could be exercised by Welsh Members of Parliament and there would be direct accountability to the electorate for the disposal and dispersal of those powers. I do not understand the point of the right hon. Gentleman's intervention.

Mr. Syms: I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and return to opposing amendment No. 19A. If I did not, the Committee would not make progress.

Mr. Davies: For the sake of accuracy, let me make it clear that I was making no criticism whatever of hon. Members who represent Welsh constituencies. My criticism was of the system and of previous Secretaries of State, who have wielded an enormous power of patronage in a way that was unacceptable, bordering on the corrupt. Our parliamentary system has proved inadequate in hauling those to account.

Mr. Syms: I thank the Secretary of State for his further contribution.
An increase from seven to nine in the number of representatives from multi-Member areas would diminish the quality of representation because Members who represent constituents will fall over one another's feet trying to tackle similar problems and to take up problems with civil servants and local government. I do not believe that the quality of representation will improve if the number of Members increases. If I had a choice—which I do not—I would have reduced the representation in terms of additional Members, but the Committee disposed of that matter yesterday.
The key point is that accountability will be confused in some areas. Although hon. Members have said that it is up to the good will of the Members who represent an area to work together where possible—I am sure that there is a good local interest in representatives from particular areas having conventions to work together—there will be a great deal of confusion, which will diminish representation.
In the nature of the system that will be produced, different political parties will represent different areas. Although that will give diversity—and perhaps competition, which would be a good thing in one or two parts of the Principality—it will cause problems in terms of Members dealing with constituents.
The amendment is not useful. I prefer to stick with what the Government have proposed and if there is a Division I shall vote against amendment No. 19A.

Dr. Marek: The hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) has completely forgotten a large chunk of our purpose in this place: scrutiny. Three thousand statutory instruments pass through the House each Session. I wonder how many he has read in his time in the House.
I shall try to speak to the amendments. You have been very generous, Mr. Martin, in allowing the debate to range slightly wide. I do not intend to seek to catch your eye in the stand part debate and I hope that I shall not cause you to call me to order.
Yesterday's discussion was important because the Secretary of State has a job to do and he must get right the interaction between primary and secondary legislation. We are looking for him to do something about that. I fear that in this discussion—we are up against the guillotine at 7 o'clock—we can do nothing about that.
I have sympathy with the amendments. I would have preferred a national assembly with more than 40 or 60 Members—a single transferable vote assembly or whatever. That would have made it easier to take into account gender balance, and scrutiny would have been easier. However, I fear, for the reasons given by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers), that we have 40:20 and must put up with it.
I am afraid that it was partly necessary to drag some sections of the Labour party kicking and screaming and make them accept that a simple first-past-the-post system was not good enough and that an element of proportional representation was needed. I do not know whether it was the minimum that we could get away with.
There was a further problem. The enemies of the Bill were saying that the assembly would cost a lot of money; we have all read it in the newspapers in Wales. As a result, there was pressure on the Secretary of State to make the assembly as small as possible. There was pressure not to have 50 Members or STV, which caused us to end up with 40:20. This is not my ideal, but I shall support the Secretary of State this time. I can assure him that if he argues, "We have this now; we cannot start taking it all to pieces and looking at it again and because of practicality we must stick with it," he will have my support in the Lobby if the House divides on the amendment.
I shall be brief because we have many amendments and clauses to debate. There is a measure of agreement. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) said that although he did not originally believe in the proposed system he had come round to saying and thinking that a measure of proportionality was right. There may be opponents of proportionality in the Committee, but they are not standing up and speaking in the debates. I believe that we are going in the right direction. In any case, I suggest that the national assembly itself can consider the matter once it comes into being. I regret that there is nothing we can do about the amendments at this point. They have my sympathy, but we should now move on to the other parts of the Bill.

Mr. Hawkins: I support what my hon. Friends the Members for Poole (Mr. Syms) and for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) said. By means of the amendment, the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru are trying to make a bad situation worse. Last night, the Committee decided,

contrary to our wishes, to pursue this lunatic experiment with proportional representation. I predict that the Labour party will rue the day it did this, because one day, in Wales and in Scotland, Labour's opponents in the nationalist parties will come to dominate the assemblies and will press for full independence for Wales and Scotland. That, however, is a debate for another day.

Mr. Paul Flynn: Does the hon. Gentleman recognise—there is an early-day motion about the democratic deficit in Wales—the glaring unfairness in Welsh politics which led to a party that won a considerable number of votes at the election sending no representatives to Parliament? Does he realise that PR will give the fringe parties in Wales, such as the Greens and the Conservatives, some chance of representation?

Mr. Hawkins: The hon. Gentleman has not been here for most of the debate, but I can tell him that my opposition to proportional representation is absolute. It is a disastrous system which has been abandoned by many countries in Europe where it has been tried and found wanting.
My hon. Friend the Member for Poole was right: the people we are here to represent will be confused by the new system. More bureaucratic obstacles will be put in their way and they will not know who to approach. Scrutiny will suffer, too. The way Parliament has always scrutinised primary and secondary legislation will be diluted. I whole-heartedly oppose this attempt by the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru to increase confusion.

Sir Raymond Powell: I oppose amendment No. 19A. I take it that the Liberal Democrats have ulterior motives for supporting it. They are supposed to be in bed with the Government on this and many other matters, but it looks today as if they will find no support for the idea of 10 extra seats in the assembly. I for one will oppose them.
I sympathise with the views expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) on most of these issues. He referred to the opposition that there had been in the Labour party to the proposed number of seats in the assembly; he referred especially to proportional representation. The latter was discussed over a long period by my party—for many years, in fact. I suspect that your Scottish colleagues, Mr. Martin, have also discussed PR and the correct representation for a Scottish Parliament at great length and in great detail.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney mentioned, there was at one time agreement on the first-past-the-post system for the Welsh assembly. Some years ago, some of us formed the all-party first past the post system group; we believed in first past the post for all manner of elections in this country. That view was held by quite a number of colleagues who are now Ministers.
Some time later, I was notified that a new agreement had been reached at a conference held in Llandudno: an agreement to go for proportional representation. Possibly some of us should have given up our other duties to participate in that discussion—but we did not. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney was among those who failed to do so. In any case, the


whole idea was changed by a democratic decision. That is not to say that Members of this House who objected to PR were entirely convinced. I do not know of any form of election in this country, in local government or anywhere else, in which PR is used. I believe that the Committee may come to regret the fact that the system is to be introduced for a Welsh assembly.
Still, I am a democrat and a decision has been reached. That decision has been referred to time and again in these debates and in the White Paper. I am therefore considering opposing the amendment and supporting the Government's moves to introduce a system which was, after all, voted for in the referendum and promised in the White Paper—although I harbour some reservations about the manner of its introduction.
Another good point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney was that so many responsibilities are to be taken away from Members of this House and given to the Welsh assembly that our work load here may well be reduced—possibly by 25 per cent. or more. I do not know whether that will mean a reduction in the number of seats in Parliament, but all the documents on the subject that I have read suggest that it will. Indeed, the Bill itself hints at a reduction in the number of parliamentary seats and even in the number of assembly seats. A reduction in the number of seats for Members of Parliament in Wales would mean a reduction in the number of seats in the assembly. People who have studied the work of the committees proposed for the assembly conclude that the numerical strength that is currently suggested would be insufficient to cover the work load already designated to the committees.
The committees would experience difficulty, but we, too, would find it difficult to agree to the number of parliamentary seats being reduced. If that happens—it could also happen in Scotland—there will be numerous objections from hon. Members.

Mr. Dalyell: With reference to Scotland, dare I use the word "stoochie" again? There has been great trouble about the proposal that after the assembly has been in operation for some years, the membership should be reduced from 129 to about 112 because of the alteration of seats here in Westminster. No one would wish it on an assembly that it should be set up and, after a decade, have the number of seats reduced. That would create awful stoochies.

Sir Raymond Powell: My hon. Friend is right.
The Institute of Welsh Affairs has produced a pamphlet on an effective national assembly, in which it refers to the key amendments to the Government's proposals in the Bill. On the size of the assembly, the pamphlet states in the third paragraph of the section on determining the total number of Members:
The consequences for the size of the Assembly (and indeed for the membership of the Scottish Parliament) are serious if those numbers are reduced. For automatically the number of constituency members has to be reduced since that is tied to the number of parliamentary constituencies for the time being. Further, the number

of additional members must also be recalculated to maintain the ratio of 2:1 (Schedule I, para. 8) in the case of the Assembly. So a reduction of 4 Welsh MPs results in a loss of 6 members from the Assembly, without any legislative action.
The constitution working party of the IWA was set up to examine all aspects of the Bill. I respectfully suggest that the pronouncements in such a paper should be studied carefully by the Secretary of State and the Welsh Office.
During the election campaign, I expressed my views on the introduction of proportional representation.

Mr. Ron Davies: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I have read carefully the report of the Institute of Welsh Affairs. I must make it clear to my hon. Friend that there is no provision in the Bill that would reduce the number of Members in the Welsh assembly. He is quite wrong to draw that conclusion.

Sir Raymond Powell: With all due respect to my right hon. Friend, I read out a paragraph of the document produced by the Institute of Welsh Affairs.

Mr. Gareth Thomas: I have some difficulty understanding my hon. Friend's point. The Bill contains no provision to reduce the number of Westminster representatives. Perhaps he could expand on that point.

Sir Raymond Powell: I can only repeat what I quoted from the IWA document. If my hon. Friend reads it, he will reach the same conclusion. I am merely arguing against the Liberal Democrat amendment and expressing the views that I expressed during the referendum campaign. I voted no because of the proposal to introduce a PR system. We will regret that in the future. I repeat that that was the only reason I voted no.
I am a devolutionist at heart. I voted for devolution in 1978 and I campaigned for devolution at that time. We should look back at what was suggested in the Wales Act 1978, not only on the question of representation, but on the powers. We were not prepared to extend the powers that are now proposed. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney was a member of the Government at the time. He will recall what it was proposed that we extend to Wales. The main issue at the time was the extension of local government and the formation of unitary authorities.
Unitary authorities have been introduced in Wales. That is not the issue. Now, a Welsh assembly is proposed with a membership of 60. I proposed that there should be 40 men and 40 women representing 40 parliamentary seats—a man and a woman for each seat—but that was thrown out. My suggestion was not even supported by the women in Wales, who at one time advocated equal rights for women. They did not support my proposal to give the assembly 80 seats. If my proposal had been supported, we would have encountered the difficulty outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney—whether the man or the woman would represent the constituency.
The question now is who will represent the Ogmore constituency, say, in an assembly. We will elect the Member of the Assembly for Ogmore, who will participate in selecting the four Members to serve the region—each of


the five regions will be represented by four Members—but who will represent the views of the constituents? Will it be the Member of Parliament, one of the Members representing the European seats, or the Member of the elected assembly? How will constituents' views be expressed? Where in the Bill is there any such demarcation?

Mr. Evans: I begin by taking the Secretary of State to task for something that he said earlier to the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands), when the hon. Gentleman suggested an alteration to the electoral system that would mean that proportional representation applied to all constituency seats, rather than some of them. The hon. Gentleman was told that if only he had made such representations earlier, matters might have been different because of his persuasive argument.
Surely, however, that is what the Committee stage is all about. By the logic and strength of my argument, and my magnetic personal charm, I hope to persuade the Secretary of State to accept some of my views. Surely it is not all done and dusted, and we will not be told that any suggestions that we make now should have been brought to the Secretary of State before the Committee stage. I hope that he meant something different by what he said to his hon. Friend, and that he will consider all the ideas presented in Committee with the aim of improving the Bill, as we all want to do.

Mr. Ron Davies: The hon. Gentleman knows that I am a very firm advocate of inclusive politics and am always prepared to listen to views that have been expressed. I merely invited my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands), as he has reflected long and hard and is advocating proportional representation, to reflect on whether he had followed the right course of action in not making representations at the time, some 18 months ago, when invited to do so.
I find the hon. Gentleman's arguments very persuasive, but not enough to change my mind. In the league of persuasiveness, I am afraid that my hon. Friend is at the top, and the hon. Gentleman is right at the bottom.

Mr. Evans: I am delighted to hear that I am at the bottom. If there were a basement, no doubt I would be in that as well.

Dr. Marek: We must have a bit of sanity here. When has legislation ever been changed as a result of debates in this place? It does happen, but it is almost as rare as seeing the proverbial pig flying in the sky.

Mr. Evans: It is an early bath for all of us if that is the case. I would rather hope that debates in the House give Ministers opportunities to amend their own legislation, as do debates in Committee, as we have seen from the amendments. I shall make my contribution brief so that we discuss as many amendments as possible.

Mr. Rowlands: One of the additional problems is that, having had a referendum, it is harder for those of us who then change our minds to argue the case, because, quite rightly, the Government can say that these matters were put very clearly to the people before the referendum. We also have to work out the curious chemistry between referendum politics and parliamentary representative politics of the kind that we are debating.

Mr. Evans: I agree. In many ways it is almost as though the referendum is being used as an instrument of coercion. We have to get the right balance, or we could not accept the amendments that are before us. The White Paper clearly stated that we would present to the Welsh public an additional member system, 40 constituencies, and the top-up of 20. That was clearly explained in the White Paper.
We must also take into account the fact that only one in four Welsh people supported the proposals. Therefore, as the Prime Minister himself said on the steps of No. 10 Downing street, we have to listen to what the Welsh people have said and bend over backwards to meet their concerns. I hope that that is what this process will be about.
As far as I am concerned, the amendments that we are considering could be termed the welfare-to-work amendments, or the job creation scheme. Not content with having just 60 politicians, the amendments tabled by the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru say that we should have 70—an extra 10. One of the arguments that we used during the referendum campaign was whether the people of Wales want their money spent on 60 more politicians or on services, and we heard the message.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Win Griffiths): The hon. Gentleman mentioned welfare to work. If he wanted to be flippant about it, this is the best designed scheme to get it working for all the Tories without seats in Wales. We know that some of them want to get back on the bandwagon.

Mr. Evans: The Government's generosity knows no bounds. What they are doing is superb: to include all these special measures and to take all the extra effort to ensure that my former colleagues will be given some worthwhile work in Wales. When the elections to the assembly take place, not only my former colleagues but many other Conservatives will be standing and no doubt will not only win on the additional member system but, after what the Government have done in the past several months, will represent the constituencies themselves. No doubt some of them will sit alongside Conservative Members of the Assembly.
That brings me back to what the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney was talking about—constituency Members sitting at Westminster, a constituency representative sitting in Cardiff, Swansea or wherever, and regional representation on top of that. That will lead to massive confusion for the elector. It will also lead to massive confusion and conflict, as the hon. Gentleman said, between Westminster Members of Parliament and Members of the assembly, and the additional Members—whether there are four or six—if we go down the route suggested by the amendments.

Because of all the various tiers, who will know which body does what? Within those bodies will be the pick and mix of politicians, so who will do what? It will be extremely confusing for electors, as they will have to write to their Westminster Member of Parliament, their Member of the Assembly and their regional Members. I suspect that that will be great news for PC World, which will sell many more computers so that electors can write to everybody, but it will not be such good news for the quality and clarity of representation that people get. I believe that people in Wales are currently well represented by their Members of Parliament— [Interruption.]—as they were under previous Administrations as well. The only thing that would, perhaps, clear up the problem of the conflict would be a dual mandate, whereby the Member of Parliament sat in Westminster and in the assembly, but that would be extremely difficult if one were to take his or her position at Westminster and in the assembly seriously.
The Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru argue that this will lead to fairer representation. The word "fair" is being tortured in the Chamber to defend various devices that are of benefit to the Liberal Democrats. Yesterday, it was the single transferable vote. The Liberal Democrats say that it is a fair system, but it would really benefit them more than anybody else. Who will benefit most from the system suggested by the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru—the minority parties?

Mr. Flynn: The Conservatives.

Mr. Evans: No. The Conservatives would benefit under the system proposed by the Government, but if we were to go further and stretch the additional representation, the system would, of course, benefit the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru, but it is all done under the guise of fairness. We have to scratch the surface of fairness, Sir Alan, to find out exactly what the minority parties are doing. They are looking not simply for fairer representation but better representation, so we have to take it all with a pinch of salt.
As far as the other amendments tabled by Plaid Cymru are concerned, we have to be very suspicious about going down the route that they suggest. Perhaps we will have to use different criteria for the regions that will be represented by additional members.

Mr. Llwyd: What the hon. Gentleman just said is absolute nonsense. The matters contained in the amendment are considerations that are normally applied by the Boundary Commissioner in any event.

Mr. Evans: It would not be the first time that I have spoken nonsense, Sir Alan, and I suspect that it will not be the last.
Plaid Cymru is trying to use the system to get better representation for themselves. At the moment, each of the European constituencies has just one representative in Brussels. Under the system that we are considering, there will be four. The arguments that the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) is using to suggest that there should be changes in the system falls down completely. After all, certain constituencies are more difficult than others in terms of terrain and for social and cultural reasons.
The same applies to the boundaries. We have to take the good with the bad. The White Paper and Library papers mention population. At least there is some equality of representation, which we should consider very carefully so that the differences between the areas are not as massive as they are in some parliamentary constituencies. For example, in 1992, the Isle of Wight had a population of 90,000 and some places in Scotland had 46,000. The disparities are hardly as bad as they are in parts of Wales. We have to be careful about that.
The European boundaries may not be ideal, but at least they give some equality of representation to the people who live in those areas, and with the additional representation of four extra Members the system will be fine.
With regard to the whole gamut of the additional member system, why are we putting the cart before the horse? Lord Jenkins of Hillhead currently heads a committee considering proportional representation. It seems a little hurried to put forward this system before hearing what that committee has to say. Had we waited, some form of consensus might have been reached, although perhaps not from the Conservatives, who although they will benefit from the system suggested by the Government, cannot support it.

Mr. Gareth Thomas: I speak in opposition to the amendments. It is an interesting fact that, when the assembly elections are conducted on 1 May 1999, it will be the first occasion in the British isles when a system of proportional representation is used. That is an interesting and challenging departure.
I cannot pretend that the system devised by the Government, to give legitimacy to the Welsh assembly and to ensure that all political parties have a stake in it, is entirely logical or coherent. At times, politics is neither logical nor coherent. However, the Government have devised the best in the circumstances, given the political asymmetry of Wales and the real danger that, had the Government decided on a first-past-the-post system, legitimacy would have been taken away from the assembly in its early years.
Credit should be given where it is due. It would have been in the Labour party's interests to insist on a first-past-the-post system in order to replicate the sort of electoral results which meant that Wales became, in that much used cliche, a Tory-free zone. But that is not the purpose behind what on any view must be regarded as an altruistic attempt to grapple with the electoral and political geography of Wales.

Mr. Bernard Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman said that proportional representation had never been used before in the British Isles, but it is today used in Northern Ireland for the election of Members to the European Parliament. It was originally established as the electoral system for the Stormont Parliament, although the Stormont Parliament itself changed that, much to the consternation of the Government at the time.

Mr. Thomas: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for correcting what was undoubtedly an error on my part. I hope that the Committee will forgive me. None the less, it is a constitutional innovation for the United Kingdom to introduce a system of proportionality in domestic


elections. One would have to concede that it is not the most elegant of solutions, but it is a workable solution which can be reviewed in the light of experience. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, he intends to review the electoral system in the light of experience, and that is an important concession.

Mr. Llwyd: I do not want to embarrass the hon. Gentleman unduly. He has apologised most profusely once to the Chair. Perhaps he would like to apologise again. Local elections in Northern Ireland have been conducted by proportional representation for the last eight, nine or 10 years.

Mr. Thomas: Yes, I took on board what the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) said in its entirety. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) for clarifying that point.
The Government produced a White Paper which set out the electoral system in detail and it would be wrong for the Government to depart from the regime that has been put to the people of Wales in a referendum. We should not forget that there is a real anxiety in Wales that the assembly will be expensive. We have to meet that anxiety, and to propose a further increase in the number of representatives would be counterproductive because it would be expensive. The assembly should conduct itself according to the number of Members available. I anticipate that the committee structure will not be too unwieldy. It should reflect the fact that the assembly will have to work in partnership with the House and that the assembly will be taking a strategic view of issues in Wales generally.
I congratulate the Government on their proposals for the electoral system. It is a genuine attempt to put flesh on the bones of the idea of inclusive politics; of a partnership between the people of Wales in order to give democratic legitimacy to an innovation for the British constitution.

Mr. Rhodri Morgan: It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Thomas) and the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), who made the extraordinary admission, which I have never heard before, that it was not the first time that he had spoken nonsense. That is not to say that other Conservative Front-Bench spokesmen have not spoken nonsense; it is just that this is the first time it has ever been admitted from the Front Bench, and very welcome that was.
The amendments are important because they all relate to the issue of how the legislation will ensure that the Welsh assembly has what one could call a healthy degree of opposition. No one wants one-party control. The majority party will probably be the Labour party for most of the time, although one can never predict something as unpredictable as democracy. But on the basis of the past 70 years, that is likely.
I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House will accept that the Government intend to try to ensure that there is healthy opposition. That was one of the points made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister during his visit to Wales as Leader of the Opposition which was referred to earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for

Rhondda (Mr. Rogers). He would not have used the sort of Anglo-Welsh dialect that I am using, but he said that there must be a tidy degree of opposition in the Welsh assembly or people will fall into lazy ways.
I think that we would all accept that democracy needs challenge to work in a healthy way. The first person to make that point was my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in the Brangwyn hall in Swansea about four years ago in a speech which was either famous or notorious, according to one's point of view, when he referred to the culture of arrogance which we have seen from time to time in certain local authorities where Labour has ruled virtually unchallenged for the past 70 years.
A frisson ran round the Brangwyn hall in the Swansea Guildhall—perhaps a name which I should not mention these days—because there were councillors present who knew all too well what my right hon. Friend was talking about. It is to ensure that that culture of arrogance does not occur that the Government have decided to go for 2:1 proportional representation, using the additional member system.
Yesterday, we accepted that AMS would be the principle on which proportional representation would be based, so we are not arguing about that tonight; only whether the split should be 4:3 or 2:1. In addition, there are certain other amendments, including amendment No. 187 from Plaid Cymru. The issue is whether 4:3 is better than 2:1. People have said that the Scots have gone for 4:3 so why should Wales go for 2:1? In a way, it is all based on what I understand to be the intention of amendment No. 187, which, on my reading, is perfectly sensible. I do not think that we are going to divide on it.
The 2:1 split was chosen in preference to a 4:3 split or some other ratio giving even less of a proportional element because of the geographical, social and economic considerations of Wales. The special circumstances of Wales are similar to those of Scotland in some ways. The Prime Minister was undoubtedly impressed by the definite commitment of Scotland to a 4:3 split and a 129-seat Parliament with a large number of people on the list. Some of the same dangers of Labour domination are also relevant in Wales.
6 pm
We need a stronger Conservative Opposition in Wales than we are ever likely to get by ordinary means. In my first 10 years in the House, people used to say that the situation in Wales and Scotland was rather like what would happen if Kent, Hampshire and Sussex were a separate country—there would be no Labour representation. I am not sure of the exact numbers, but the 1997 Labour landslide has produced a healthy Labour representation in those counties. Indeed, it is possible that Labour has a majority there. I do not know whether any Conservative Members can correct me on that. The situation must be pretty close to equality.
Unfortunately, although Labour landslides such as those in 1945, 1966 and 1997 give us—albeit only every 30 years—a healthy Labour representation in the wealthier parts of the home counties, that does not occur for the Conservatives in Wales. Even at their high point in 1983, they never came anything like as close to a majority or parity as Labour has in the wealthiest parts of the home counties.
We want to ensure healthy opposition. How far should we go to ensure that? Should we go beyond a 2:1 split of first past the post and additional member system? As a top-up system, the additional member system is the firmest guarantee of proportionality. The compensation is that we do not need to go beyond a 50 per cent. top-up—one third of the total membership. People can easily understand a 2:1 ratio. An election in a bad year for Labour could result in 30 Labour seats and 10 each for the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru—or perhaps some other division, such as 12, 10 and eight. In theory, it is therefore possible that Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives could join together—it is unlikely, but it could happen if Labour were doing something really stupid—and overthrow Labour control. That is what we want.

Mr. Syms: The mixture of first past the post and the additional member system could result in Labour, with a small majority, losing by-elections when its Members unfortunately died or moved, while the weaker parties appointed Members under the additional member system when the same happened to them. That is not entirely fair. An Administration could lose control, having been originally popular enough to win the first past the post seats.

Mr. Morgan: That confirms what I have said. We are trying to construct a fair political system for Wales, where the Conservatives have never won a majority. It is probably fair to say, given how things have gone since 1983, that they will never win a majority there. The pendulum in Welsh politics does not swing sufficiently far to bring the Conservatives into power, even in years such as 1983, just after the Falklands war.
The 2:1 split addresses that problem. We have been fair to the Conservatives and to ourselves, as the likely dominant party. We want a system under which, if the likely Labour majority does something stupid, the other three parties, which might just be coming close to a majority and perhaps need only one Labour rebel, could overturn the party in control. I do not know how that could be described as objectionable. It is a healthy democratic answer to the almost unique circumstances of Wales, where Labour is far more dominant than in Scotland, because the nationalist party is far weaker than that in Scotland in its overall proportion of the vote.
We want to construct a democratically healthy system under which, if Labour does something stupid, it could be turned out of office. That is why I strongly resist the amendments, which do not recognise the magnanimity or the democratic spirit in which the schedule has been constructed, to provide healthy opposition and healthy democracy in the Welsh assembly.

Mr. Dalyell: I was delighted by the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands). This has been a fascinating and educational afternoon. I should like to ask one question, prompted by my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Sir R. Powell).
I have known two hon. Members for Ogmore—the late Walter Padley, who played a prominent role as a Minister in the Foreign Office and in many other capacities, and my current hon. Friend. Will future hon. Members for Ogmore be seen as anything more in their Welsh capacity

than supplicants for more money? I fear that the main task of future Welsh and Scottish Members of Parliament will be perceived as trying to get more budgetary advantage for Wales and Scotland. If they fail, they will get a rough time from the Members of the Assembly and will be accused of letting them down by not getting enough lolly. Therein lie all sorts of difficulties for the functioning of a subordinate Parliament in part of a unitary state.
Because of time constraints and a promise that I made to the Whips, I shall leave my contribution at that serious question.

Mr. Win Griffiths: As my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) pointed out, the debate has been educational and as wide ranging as possible, given the amendments, which we started considering earlier this afternoon. The amendments would increase the assembly from 60 to 70 Members. The Government believe that the appropriate size is 60, as we said in our White Paper. As some of my hon. Friends have pointed out, that has driven forward the debate. The proposal was endorsed in the referendum on 18 September. Fiddling about with the numbers at this stage would move too far from the referendum proposals.

Mr. Wigley: I note that the Minister says that he does not want to move from the proposal at this stage. If the assembly finds it difficult to get the right balance of membership on committees and comes back on that issue, will the Government be prepared to listen?

Mr. Griffiths: Of course we shall listen to what the House and the assembly say when it is in operation. That was going to be my closing remark. The fact that I am jumping to it immediately does not mean that I shall sit down now. There are other issues to take into account.
We have decided on a 60-Member assembly with a 2:1 split. There have been calls for more Members because of the committees that the assembly will need to establish. That was one of the strong points made by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Livsey). However, we have looked at the issue closely. There will be a group to advise us on the standing orders for the assembly. We are sure that we can get a razor-sharp focus in Wales that will not require large, cumbersome committees. Sixty Members will have plenty to do. The figure strikes an appropriate balance. Obviously, it is a question of judgment, and at this time we judge that 60 Members is appropriate. Constituency representatives will have their focus, and voters will be able to relate to it. Electoral areas based on European constituencies will be familiar to voters. Therefore, there is an element of continuity in the proposals and, at the same time, significant change in the move to proportional representation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) raised a number of practical points about potential conflicts. He and my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers), a fellow former Member of the European Parliament and—coincidentally—a fellow former Vice-President of the European Parliament, described conflicts that might emerge in the early days. It is fair to say that one is likely to find that when a new institution is given responsibilities which, to a certain extent, overlap those of an existing institution. Indeed, there has been such conflict between


councillors and Members of Parliament for a long time. That point was not raised in the debate. I feel confident that, with the passing of time, many such conflicts will be resolved as relationships develop within the parties and among the personalities.
I refer to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow. I do not think that Welsh or Scottish Members will be seen only as people who are in Westminster to argue about the Welsh or the Scottish bloc. There will be debates on issues relating to education, health, social security and defence to which Members from Wales particularly will want to contribute, because such issues will have an impact on Wales and the assembly. There will be plenty for Members from Wales to do.
I refer briefly to the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd). The Government feel that the amendments are not necessary or appropriate. Some guidance on special geographical considerations is appropriate. It will not always be appropriate to take geography into account, but sometimes, when there appears to be conflict over, for example, the size of a constituency or where a boundary should be, some geographical consideration might allow the boundary commission to move away from all the other things that it has to consider.
Equally, rather than trying to specify in the Bill the sort of things that the hon. Gentleman wanted in respect of the boundary commission's work, it would be better to allow flexibility to remain. Demographic, social and cultural considerations, for example, are already in the background of the commission's work. To include such specifications in the Bill and make them drive the process forward would be far too strong a move.

Mr. Llwyd: Why should the Government bother to include geography and exclude all other aspects?

Mr. Griffiths: It is because tangible considerations such as mountain ranges, river valleys and estuaries must be taken into account. Other considerations tend to change over time.
If my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Sir R. Powell) reflected accurately the publication of the Institute of Welsh Affairs, it would appear that there has been a misunderstanding of how the boundary commission works. The boundary commission can never reduce the number of seats in a boundary review. Reductions in the number of seats can come about only as a result of primary legislation. As it was agreed to reduce the number of seats in Scotland, specific provision for that has been made in the Scotland Bill. That does not apply to Wales, so such considerations do not need to be brought forward.
The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy expressed his preference with regard to the powerhouse and the North Wales training and enterprise council. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is considering his submission carefully and will make a judgment on it later.
I hope that members of the Committee accept that the amendments do not add anything to the Bill. They are not needed, and in some cases, they conflict with the referendum result. If they were pressed to a vote, the Government would urge the Committee to reject them.

Mr. Livsey: I congratulate members of the Committee on an interesting debate. We have just heard a defence of the status quo, which is nothing more than I would expect from the Government. The amendments were tabled to create a more proportional Welsh assembly, so that the regions of Wales would feel more included in the process, and so that the assembly's committee system would be better served, with 10 more Members.
The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) understandably wants a constructive and stable relationship between the assembly and the Westminster Parliament. He asked how that would work. We certainly believe that there is a clear delineation between domestic policy, which will be exercised by the assembly and, at the moment, is exercised by the Secretary of State and his Ministers in the Welsh Office, and macro-economic functions in the Westminster Parliament concerning such matters as defence. The hon. Gentleman referred to a dual democratic bidding. We obviously have doubts about that as well, which is why we proposed the single transferable vote system yesterday. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) mentioned the least proportional system that the Government could get away with, which let the cat out of the bag.
The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) discussed under amendments Nos. 188 and 187 the need for demographic, social and cultural factors to be considered more. We certainly support that, especially in relation to electoral boundaries. Incidentally, I welcome his statement that he wants Meirionnydd to remain the powerhouse. That is an important statement, which I hope the Secretary of State and the Minister will take into account.
The hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) rightly said that proportional representation would help to bring women and black people into the assembly—

Mr. Rogers: Get on with it.

Mr. Livsey: I am trying to sum up.
The hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) talked about party lists and hacks. We addressed that question yesterday when we proposed an STV system.
The hon. Member for Rhondda said that Wales is taking a dramatic step forward, and I agree. All we are asking in the amendments is for democracy to be allowed to go a little further.
The hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) said that there would be too many people and that they would be falling over each other, but Great Britain has the lowest number of elected persons in western Europe.
The hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) toed the party line in saying that the 40:20 split was probably correct, and minimalist in terms of Members—the smallest assembly that could possibly be envisaged. Judging by that statement, I presume that he would prefer that system to go forward.
Other points were made by other hon. Members, but time is running out. The hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) said that the proposal would mean 10 more politicians, and also that the Conservatives would win seats in the assembly. I am pleased that the Conservative party is on board for the assembly.
The hon. Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Thomas) said that to introduce an electoral system involving proportional representation was epoch-making. It was rightly pointed out to him that Northern Ireland adopted such a system long ago.
The hon. Member for Cardiff, West magnanimously stated that he might be prepared to accept a situation in which opposing Labour would be allowed. He also said that the Labour party was stronger in Wales than in Scotland-yet the system in Wales is less proportional than that proposed for Scotland. I leave him with that question to ponder.
The amendments are about representation, democracy and fairness, but the questions that they raise have been aired and I do not wish to press them.
Amendment negatived.

Mr. Llwyd: I beg to move amendment No. 186, in page 71, line 31, leave out 'local government', and insert 'parliamentary'.

The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Alan Haselhurst): With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 189, in page 73, line 7, leave out 'local government' and insert 'parliamentary'.
No. 31A, in clause 10, page 6, line 21, leave out from 'who' to end of line 26, and insert
'are entitled to vote as electors in a parliamentary election'.
No. 74, in clause 10, page 6, line 21, leave out from 'who' to end of line 26 and insert
'are entitled to vote as electors in a parliamentary election or who would be so entitled if they were not peers'.
No. 179, in clause 10, page 6, line 22, leave out 'local government' and insert 'parliamentary'.
No. 180, in clause 10, page 6, line 25, leave out 'local government' and insert 'parliamentary'.
No. 181, in clause 10, page 6, line 26, after 'constituency', insert
'which is the principal private residence of the elector.'.
No. 175, in clause 10, page 6, line 26, at end insert
'save that the Secretary of State may by order provide for the registration as electors of persons who (a) have been permanently resident in Wales at any time in the 20 years preceding the election in question, (b) are not entitled to vote in Wales at a parliamentary election, and (c) are entitled to vote elsewhere at a parliamentary election.'.
No. 182, in clause 10, page 6, line 26, at end insert
'and
(c) are not registered at that address solely by virtue of being occupants of a second home.'.

Mr. Llwyd: rose—

The Chairman: Mr. Cynog Dafis.

Mr. Llwyd: Elfyn Llwyd, Sir Alan. I feel especially hurt because I ensured that the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) called you "Sir Alan", rather than "Mr. Alan". I shall probably never intervene again.
Now I shall try to be serious; I am afraid that the whole debate has been too exciting for me. I shall deal with the amendments as quickly as I can. Amendment No. 186, standing in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member

for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley), and in those of my other hon. Friends and myself, is designed to insert the word "parliamentary" instead of the words "local government".
The purpose of the amendment is simple. It would mean that elections to the national assembly were based on the parliamentary list of electors instead of the local government list. There are several reasons for that. First, clearly the assembly will not be a creature of local government. I hasten to add that I have no antipathy to local government. I welcome clause 110, which gives the national assembly a duty to promote the interests and needs of local government; that is sensible.
There is also the important question of avoiding duplication of work. It would be simple to use the parliamentary electors list in connection with the national assembly.
Status is another question which arises. Personally, I have never been unduly conscious of status; I believe that it is often bogus, a question more of self-delusion than of anything else. However, I suppose that it will add a certain status to the new national assembly if the parliamentary list is used. The amendment should not cause the Government great difficulty, and I would welcome Ministers' views in due course.
Amendment No. 181, which refers to the principal private residence of the elector, can be coupled with amendment No. 175. Those two amendments have slightly more content. During the referendum campaign, there was much evidence to support the view that people with second or holiday homes in Wales travelled back specifically to vote no on 18 September.
That was an attempted denial of democracy, when we consider the fact that up to 20 or 25 per cent. of the housing stock in many areas of Wales is devoted to second or holiday homes. The idea is unacceptable, whoever those people are and wherever they come from. It almost brought about a denial of the democratic voice of the people of Wales on 18 September, so I hope that proper consideration can be given to our suggestion.
I shall truncate what I intended to say. I meant to say considerably more, but I shall not dwell on it all now. The other amendment, which is also important, would enable expatriate Welsh people to vote in the election. There is no reason why they should not. It happens in parliamentary elections, and I see no reason why they should not be allowed to vote in the forthcoming elections to the national assembly.
Many Welsh Members of Parliament spend time courting Welsh expatriates and trying to persuade them to come back and invest in Wales and to set up in business there. If the amendment were accepted, we could at least say to them that they would be given the basic civil right of a vote for the main national assembly of their home country.
With those few words, I commend our amendments to the Committee.

Mr. Jenkin: The amendments, tabled by the Welsh nationalists and ourselves, go to the heart of the confusion in the Bill. They ask whether the assembly is really a form of parliament or simply a branch of local government.
If we extrapolate from the Government's proposal to use the local government franchise, the assembly seems to be just a branch of local government. We question


whether that is appropriate, especially in view of the unhappiness that we expressed about the franchise for the referendum, because Welsh people living outside Wales had no vote.
We have some sympathy with the nationalists' amendment, which would give people living outside Wales some say in the elections to their national assembly. Many people, although they may live outside Wales, remain Welsh nationals and to that extent their rights should be respected.
Perversely, by choosing the local government franchise, the Government have introduced the other quirk-the fact that people who happen to be living in Wales temporarily will be included in the franchise. That will extend to non-United Kingdom European Community nationals who may be in Wales for a limited period. They will be treated as equal citizens for the assembly elections, and we question whether that is appropriate.
I ask the Minister a simple question to which I should like a straight answer. Does he agree that we are obliged to have the provision under article 8b of the Maastricht treaty, which refers to the right of a European Union citizen
to vote and to stand as a candidate
in what are described as "municipal elections"? Would the national assembly elections be included in the definition of municipal elections under that article?

Mr. Win Griffiths: This has been a brief debate, but it enables us to draw out the necessary points. The Government do not want to accept any of the amendments because we believe that the question is one not of status but of allowing people who live in Wales, and who will be affected by the services provided by the National Assembly for Wales, the opportunity to vote.
That would include 38 peers and 5,010 citizens of the European Union who are currently on the appropriate register. It would also mean that the 658 overseas citizens would not be able to vote. As they would have no direct interest, because the basic primary powers of legislation would stay at Westminster, we think that using the local government register is more appropriate.
The Maastricht point was interesting, but we do not think that there is any problem in regard to a definition of what constitutes a municipal election. An election relating to the National Assembly for Wales is patently not a municipal election, whatever register is used. As for the question of the expatriate vote, and the exclusion of those who have second homes in Wales, we do not feel that we can put people who use Welsh services at a disadvantage, because the national assembly's decisions may have an impact on them. Nor do we consider that it would be useful to have any kind of expatriate vote, given the experience in the Vale of Glamorgan, where, in a parliamentary election, the expatriate vote was greater than the majority.

Mr. Wigley: May I press the Minister a little further? He said that someone with a second home had an investment and an interest. Does that mean that the Government will eventually allow French citizens with

second homes in England to vote in general elections, or does what the Minister said apply only to those with second homes in Wales? As for the question of expatriates, do the Government intend, in the next general election, not to allow United Kingdom expatriates to vote in United Kingdom elections? That is the logic of the Minister's position.

Mr. Griffiths: That has nothing to do with the Bill. We are considering what is appropriate for Wales in this context. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to address all his questions to the appropriate Ministers.

Mr. Llwyd: We have had another interesting debate. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Clause 3

TIME OF ORDINARY ELECTIONS

Mr. Wigley: I beg to move amendment No. 167, in page 2, line 18, at end insert
'but that day shall not coincide with a day designated for holding elections to local authorities in Wales'.'

The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Michael Lord): With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 168, in page 2, line 20, leave out 'May' and insert 'October.'.
No. 183, in page 2, line 20, leave out 'May in the fourth' and insert 'April in the fifth'.
No. 51A, in page 2, leave out lines 22 to 26.
No. 24A, in page 2, line 22, leave out 'Secretary of State' and insert 'Assembly'.
No. 58A, in page 2, line 27, after first 'the', insert 'first'.
No. 59A, in page 2, line 28, leave out 'community'.
No. 25A, in page 2, line 28, after 'State', insert
'or Assembly as the case may be'.
No. 2A, in page 2, line 29, leave out 'may' and insert 'shall'.
No. 60A, in page 2, line 29, at end insert—
'() for the polls at ordinary elections of county or county borough councillors to be postponed, for not more than thirteen months, to a day specified in the order,'.
No. 184, in page 2, line 30, leave out 'community'.
No. 61, in page 2, line 33, leave out first 'the' and insert 'any'.
No. 169, in page 2, line 36, at end insert—
'(5) Orders under subsections (3) and (4) shall be made by the Assembly in respect of elections subsequent to the first ordinary election.'.

Mr. Rogers: Formally!

Mr. Wigley: I shall try to ignore that embellishment from the hon. Gentleman, who suggests that the


amendment should have been moved formally. I think that he needs to hear some gog eloquence from me to be persuaded of the merits of the amendments.
My party has an interest in amendment No. 59A, tabled by mostly Liberal Members. We also support amendments Nos. 184 and 169, as well as amendments Nos. 168 and 183.
The aim of the amendments is to avoid holding elections for the assembly on the same day as the county or community elections. We believe that there are pressing reasons for that to be done, and four viewpoints support our view. First, there is the viewpoint of the electors. There is a real danger of confusion between the two campaigns. There will be campaigns for elections to the Welsh county councils in 22 counties—elections that are very important, in which local issues are at stake.
The Government have said time after time that the assembly is not meant to be seen as an extension of local government, but there will inevitably be a danger of its being seen in that way if the two campaigns are taking place at the same time. There will be a danger of confusion between the issues. Voting hours may also be a problem. Will the voting hours for the assembly be the same as those that normally apply in parliamentary elections—between 7 am and 10 pm—or will they be between 8 am and 9 pm? Electors may also be drowned in campaigning literature. How many candidates will there be? There will be the list candidates for the region, the direct assembly candidates and local government candidates, all of whom will be putting their literature through the electors' letter boxes. Will the assembly candidates' literature be sent by Freepost? Presumably, the local government candidates' literature will not. Such issues are bound to arise.
Electors will also have to sort out the 40:20 system—the added-member system. The danger is that, with all those elections taking place at the same time, they will vote with their backsides and stay at home. How will the postal vote rules operate? Will they be identical with the local government rules? If not, that will cause additional difficulties.
Secondly, there are problems from the viewpoint of the candidates. Particularly on this first occasion, some younger councillors in all parties may want to stand for the assembly, possibly in less hopeful areas. They may want to be on the Labour party list, and the chances of gaining a place on that list may be restricted. There may be Plaid Cymru candidates or, even worse, Conservative candidates, whose chances of securing a seat will be more remote. Those candidates will, however, want to put down a marker for the future.
If those people are to stand for the assembly, it will be almost impossible for them to remain candidates for local government. They cannot present themselves to the electorate saying that they will serve on both bodies. Membership of both would be incompatible, and such candidates will find themselves under pressure. In such circumstances, candidates would be in an impossible position. They would have to give up their council seats just in order to stand for the assembly, with, perhaps, no great chance of being elected. That will restrict the number of good candidates coming forward.

Mr. Shepherd: I am genuinely confused. I had assumed that the purpose of choosing local government

election day was to secure a larger turnout, thus validating the assembly elections. There was a 25 per cent. yes vote—on a very low turnout—in the national referendum vote. I thought that choosing local government election day might induce more people to vote, because they were voting for something that mattered.

Mr. Wigley: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, in a Liverpool council election just before Christmas, there was a 6 per cent. turnout? That makes our 50 per cent. turnout look very respectable.

Mr. Rogers: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Wigley: But of course. How could I resist the hon. Gentleman?

Mr. Rogers: The evidence in Wales is quite the opposite. In 1979, when the parliamentary elections were held on the same day as the local elections, there was a huge turnout, and the voters were not at all confused.
What the right hon. Gentleman said a few minutes ago brought home to me the reason for the amendments. In many areas, Plaid Cymru will probably not be able to find enough candidates.

Mr. Wigley: I am happy to disabuse the hon. Gentleman immediately. We have started opening our list for those who are interested in being candidates. In the first two weeks, there were 160 names on it. We have no difficulty in that direction, whatever little local problems the hon. Gentleman may have in the Rhondda valley.
Thirdly, there is the viewpoint of the political parties. How can we ensure that the manifestos that address local issues—and may be produced within the county areas—and the manifestos relevant to the assembly are differentiated between, and are presented in a way that is clear to the electorate? There is a danger that the electorate may confuse what is being said about one issue with what is being said about the other. How will parties ensure that expenditure on the two campaigns is kept separate? If there are to be party political broadcasts, it will be difficult to get the balance right.
Fourthly, there is the viewpoint of the organisation of the elections by the returning officers and local government officers. Considerable difficulties could arise. Presumably, there will be different ballot boxes for the local government and the assembly votes, so there is a real danger of the wrong votes going into the wrong boxes; or, if they are all to be put into one box, what will be the position of voters in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd), where the local election results are relevant to Gwynedd or Conwy councils, the assembly constituency includes both Conwy and Gwynedd, and the added member regional vote is relevant to a seat that runs all the way down to south Pembroke and Llanelli? There will be immense confusion in trying to disaggregate the votes.
That is a real problem. Those who are responsible for running elections have approached me, expressing that worry and beseeching the Government to reconsider.

Mr. Ancram: There is a simple solution: to have different coloured ballot papers. It has happened in other elections, and most people can differentiate between the colours and know which colour should go into which box.

Mr. Wigley: I am not sure whether the right hon. Gentleman followed what I was saying about Meirionnydd Nant Conwy, which will come under at least three authorities. There will have to be immense sorting out of votes before they can start to be counted and sent in different directions. When he examines the circumstances in such areas, he will find that there is much more of a problem than he thinks.
Those points were made to me not in any political sense, but by returning officers who foresee considerable difficulties. It will be especially difficult in the first round of elections to the assembly, in which we will have the additional strain of differentiating between the single seats and the regional lists; so that first round should be held on a different day from the local government elections.
For those reasons, I ask Ministers to consider the issue seriously between now and Report. They may not accept the amendments at this point, but it is a serious issue, as confusion may arise in the counting of the votes. The confusion that we are building into the system could make the little local difficulty that we had in the referendum seem small beer indeed.

Mr. Livsey: The amendments that we tabled, starting with No. 58A, are designed to delay the county council elections for 13 months and to synchronise the timing from that point, to avoid the clash of elections for the assembly and the county council.

Mr. Ancram: We believe that fixed-term parliaments should have a fixed term. Our amendments relate to the Secretary of State's power to vary the term, which is contrary to the spirit of a fixed term. I hope that the Government will reconsider.

Mr. Win Griffiths: We are well aware of the fact that, in the late spring or early summer of 1999, many people in Wales will be asked to participate in four different sets of elections: the first elections to the assembly; the county and county borough elections; community council elections; and the European Parliament elections.
We are aware of the practical difficulties, many of which the right hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) mentioned, but we do not think that voters, electoral administrators or the political parties would be enthusiastic if we were to stage those important elections on three or four separate days in a short space of time; nor do we think it right to postpone elections for 13 months, because the local government elections were geared to a four-year period and they should continue on that basis.
6.45 pm
We believe that it would be more sensible and practical for some elections to be held together. If, for example, under existing arrangements, the assembly elections were to be held on the same day as the county and county borough elections, they would coincide with the community council elections, so we could have two sets of elections on two separate days. We believe that the appropriate way to do that is for the first elections to the assembly to be on 6 May, along with the county and county borough elections.
There are practical difficulties, and we will work on them, but we have to remember that in 1979 the two elections ran on the same day with no reported difficulties. On this occasion, we must also take into account the additional Members, and we are working on that.
Amendments Nos. 24A and 169 would allow for different ways of approaching orders under subsections (3) and (4) once the assembly is established. We do not believe that that is right. The amendments should be set aside.
Amendment No. 51 would permanently set the date of elections. We believe that there must be flexibility. We see no purpose in amendment No. 61A, and we believe that amendment No. 25 would cause confusion by allowing either the Secretary of State or the assembly to decide on the date of elections.
We want to re-examine amendments Nos. 24A and 169, and we ask that they not be pressed. We oppose all the other amendments and invite the Committee to reject them.

Mr. Wigley: I am grateful to the Minister for being willing to consider amendment No. 169. I hope that the Government will be willing to give the assembly the power to decide, when it is up and running. I should be grateful for any move in that direction. I urge the Minister, none the less, to hold consultations, between now and Report, with returning officers in Wales, so that all their observations can be taken on board. If he finds that there is some substance in the worries that I have expressed, especially from the organisational point of view, the Government can make the necessary amendments here or in the House of Lords. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 4

VOTING AT ORDINARY ELECTIONS

Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: I beg to move amendment No. 54, in page 2, line 39, leave out 'is to' and insert 'may'.

The Second Deputy Chairman: With this, it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 55, in page 2, line 41, leave out 'is to' and insert 'may'.

Mr. Jones: These are probing amendments, and I want to draw the Minister's attention to the wording of the clause, which seems to imply that for an elector to have valid votes he or she must cast two votes. Subsection (1) says:
Each person … shall have two votes",


subsection (2) says:
One … is to be given for a candidate … for the constituency",
and subsection (3) says:
The other … is to be given for … electoral region.
What happens if an elector wants to cast only one vote? Will that vote be disqualified?

Mr. Win Griffiths: As far as we are concerned, the existing drafting offers no scope to suggest that the voters could cast their two votes other than as set out in the Bill. There is no compulsion to cast two votes. They will have two votes, and it will be up to them how they cast those votes. If we receive legal counsel to say otherwise, we will look at it again.

Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: The difficulty we have is with the word "shall" in clause 4(1). Its normal construction implies an obligation on someone. If the clause had read "may" have two votes or that a single vote would not be disqualified, the position would have been clearer. I accept that the Minister may need to go away and think about the problem, but that point has been made to us.

Mr. Win Griffiths: I reassure the hon. Gentleman that we will consider the issue, although we do not believe that a change is needed.

Mr. Jones: Given that reply, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Livsey: I beg to move amendment No. 50, in page 2, line 42, at end insert—
'(aa) a candidate who is a member of a registered political party which has submitted a list of candidates to be Assembly members for the Assembly electoral region in which the Assembly constituency is located,'.

The Second Deputy Chairman: With this,' it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 51, in page 2, line 43, after '(a)', insert
'a candidate who is a member of'.
No. 30, in page 2, line 45, at end insert—
'(ab) an individual who is one of the candidates on the list referred to in (a) above, or'.
No. 57, in page 3, line 2, at end insert—
'(3A) The names of the candidates of each political party standing for an electoral region shall appear on the ballot paper for that region.'.

Mr. Livsey: Amendment No. 50 is an important proposal on the issue of open lists. It would allow voters to place their vote for the electoral region for a candidate on a party list or for the party. Amendment No. 51 would allow voters to vote for a candidate on a party list, but not to vote for the party. Amendment No. 30 would allow voters to vote for the candidate on a list.
The closed lists proposed in the Bill for the electoral regions will not give the voter any feeling of involvement in the process. Political parties will have enormous powers to control the selection and ordering of candidates, a process in which the voters will not be involved. That will increase the public perception that political parties

are remote and out of touch, and will leave no opportunity for voters to reject an unpopular candidate at the top of the list. My right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) called that the Tatton factor on Second Reading of the European Parliamentary Elections Bill.
In the East German unification election in 1990, closed lists were used. The top candidate on one list was exposed as a secret police informer four days before the election and too late to change the list. Electors had no choice but to vote for him if they wanted to vote for his party.
The amendments would allow some voter choice in the elections. A completely open list would place the candidates on the ballot paper in alphabetical order and allow voters to choose the candidates to be elected for each party. That would allow voters to choose candidates from within parties, and to choose between men and women and between candidates from different wings of the same party. Voter choice would emphasise the inclusiveness of the electorate and make the assembly more representative of Wales and the Welsh people.

Mr. Ancram: The hon. Gentleman said that candidates would be placed in alphabetical order. I presume that he means within their party groupings.

Mr. Livsey: I cannot answer that question at the moment, but I will research it and get back to the right hon. Gentleman. I need to look into the question in more detail and I cannot do that in the middle of a speech.
An alternative to the completely open list would allow voters to vote for a party or for a candidate. That system is used in Belgium for elections to the European Parliament. About half the voters vote for a party and accept the party list; the other half vote for a candidate on the list. It is rare for sufficient voters to vote for a candidate placed low on the list, but the provision is there and would have an effect in exceptional circumstances.
The Home Secretary is still considering allowing voter choice in the European parliamentary elections, and he has not ruled out changing the closed list system proposed in the European Parliamentary Elections Bill. If open lists were used for elections to the Welsh assembly, we would lead the way and set a precedent for elections to the European Parliament and the Scottish Parliament.
We are approaching the first-ever elections to the Welsh assembly. It is vital that we get the system right from the beginning. The people of Wales must feel that the system has been chosen for them, not to serve the interests of political parties. Let us choose a system that will allow voter involvement and increase the interest of the Welsh people in the assembly. Allowing open lists would achieve that.

Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: I support the amendments. Amendment No. 57 would give the Minister another option. If he wishes to reject the option of open list, or part open list, he could—as a compromise—ensure that the names of the candidates will appear on the list. The Minister will know that people traditionally like to see the names of the candidates on the list.
Amendment No. 57 does not go as far as those tabled by the Liberal Democrats and it would not mean that the voter would be able to distinguish between candidates, but at least the ballot paper would contain the names of


the candidates whom the party had decided should appear on the list in a particular order. Even if the Minister cannot grant the Liberal Democrats' requests, he could accept amendment No. 57.

Mr. Ancram: The hon. Member for Ynys Mon (Mr. Jones) raises an important point because, if the system is to work, the voters must know who is on which list. However, complications can arise, as I know from my experience of the elections to the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland. I understand that each party will have 12 candidates, with anything up to 10 parties registered for the elections. The idea that 120 names could be placed on the ballot paper begins to defy the logistics of printing those papers. We got round it in Northern Ireland by having the names listed in each polling booth. That is a sensible suggestion and I hope that it will be adopted.
I understand that the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Livsey) has now taken advice and agrees that candidates would be ordered alphabetically within party groups. The system would not make much sense otherwise. While we do not agree with the additional member system that has been proposed, for all the reasons that I mentioned yesterday, the Liberal Democrat amendment would be an improvement because it would remove pressures in parties to place candidates according to the party interest and would allow the electors some say in deciding the order of a party's candidates.
Another element that bothers me about the proposals is the potential to elect individual Members on the list. That provision is common to both the Government of Wales Bill and the Scotland Bill. However, it could create not two but three categories of Member: one would be directly elected for a constituency, a second would be elected through the party system on the additional member list, and a third would be elected as an individual for the region and would, therefore, regard himself as having a mandate within the region by direct election.
We must think very carefully before creating three categories of representatives in the Welsh assembly or the Scottish Parliament; otherwise, we will get a lot of crossed wires after the elections. Given my opposition to the additional member system, I am not sure that I can be persuaded to back the Liberal Democrat amendment, although I sympathise with it.

Mr. Win Griffiths: This debate has perhaps been the best that we have had, because everyone has tried to make a constructive contribution to improving the additional member system. The Government are not minded to accept the amendments, because we believe that they would introduce a complexity to the assembly elections that would confuse the electoral process.
However. we believe that it is important that the electorate are aware of the individuals that each party has selected to represent it on the party list. That is why we would be happy to accept the suggestion made by the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram). We have had discussions about the best way to achieve that; it may be to ensure that each polling booth contains, in a prominent place, the names of all the candidates on the

additional member list for voters to read. As it will be the first time that we run the system, we want to keep it as straightforward as possible. The only place where there is a totally open system is in the Bavarian state Parliament, where the ballot papers are sometimes as large as our broadsheet newspapers, such as The Guardian or The Times. That is not an appropriate way to encourage people to use their vote positively.
The difficulty with the Plaid Cymru amendment is that if someone inadvertently puts crosses or numbers against the names on the ballot paper, that paper would be spoilt. We would not want that to happen.
Although there is much to think about in terms of how the additional member system can best operate—

It being Seven o'clock, THE CHAIRMAN put the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order [20 January].

Amendment negatived.

THE CHAIRMAN then put the remaining Questions required to be put at that hour.

Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 5 to 10 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 11

POWER TO MAKE PROVISION ABOUT ELECTIONS ETC.

Amendment made: No. 134, in page 7, line 2, at end insert
'(and the creation of criminal offences in connection with the limitation of such expenses)'.—[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]

Clause 11, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 12 to 14 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 15

JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS AS TO DISQUALIFICATION

Amendment made: No. 135, in page 9, line 21, leave out or purported,'.—[Mr. Jon Owen Jones.]

Clause 15, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 16 to 21 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 22

TRANSFER OF MINISTERIAL FUNCTIONS

Mr. Ancram: I beg to move amendment No. 45, in page 12, line 39, after '(1)', insert—
'Functions in the fields specified in Schedule 2, so far as exercisable by the Secretary of State for Wales are hereby transferred to the Assembly.
(1A)'.'

The Second Deputy Chairman: With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 46, in page 12, line 39, leave out from 'Council' to end of line 10 on page 13 and insert
'transfer any function exercisable by the Assembly by reason of subsection (1) to a Minister of the Crown'.
No. 47, in page 13, line 18, leave out from 'Parliament' to end of line 21.

Mr. Ancram: This is probably the most important part of the Bill. So far, we have discussed at length the


technical ways in which the assembly will be established and elected. We now come to the part of the Bill that deals with the powers that will be given to the assembly and the functions that will be made over to the assembly, which will decide and shape the qualitative nature of the assembly in the future.
We are concerned to ensure that this part of the Bill is consistent with the claim made throughout the referendum campaign that the devolution proposals for Wales would not weaken, but strengthen the position of Wales within the United Kingdom and would strengthen the United Kingdom as well. It is in that context that we shall examine the matter in detail.
The Secretary of State made available to the House yesterday—and earlier to me, for which I am grateful—a copy of a draft order. It is an example of what might be put before Parliament in the run-up to the first elections of the Welsh assembly. I understand that it is not the draft order itself, but an example of the type of order that might be proposed. I hope that to avoid wasting time in Committee, the Secretary of State will say at an early stage that this is likely to be the shape of the order in the long term. I appreciate that some changes may be made, but we do not want to spend too much time debating the nature and detail of the order if it is merely an example.

Mr. Ron Davies: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for acknowledging the papers that I made available yesterday. I gave an undertaking on Second Reading that I would make the order available, and that is what I have done. I shall consult, both within Government and outside, on this matter. I intend to produce a further final draft, perhaps in the autumn of this year, to allow a period of discussion of some six months in which it can be subject to more detailed examination before it is put before the House in its final form in the early summer of next year.

Mr. Ancram: I am grateful to the Secretary of State. As he appreciates, once the draft returns to the House in order form, it is likely to be unamendable by the procedures of this House.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Peter Hain): And incomprehensible, too.

Mr. Ancram: As the hon. Gentleman says, it is likely to be incomprehensible, too; it will certainly be unamendable. It is, therefore, right that we look closely at what is proposed. I am sure that my hon. Friends will want to do so during the debate on these amendments.
First, may I outline the position of the official Opposition? We regard this matter as the test of devolution within the Union. We want to be certain that, within these provisions and within what is transferred under these provisions, we are not creating a slippery slope to the future break-up of the UK or to further devolution that will weaken the bonds that tie together the various elements of the UK. We want to ensure that there is flexibility, which will allow the interests of Wales within the UK to be met as and when the need occurs.
On the latter point, we want to ensure that there is no ratchet that will, over time, move in only one direction. Having spent some time negotiating texts in my previous incarnation as a Northern Ireland Minister, I am extremely

conscious of the fact that, when we use words such as "dynamic", which suggest that there will be movement, and when we tie that dynamism within a ratchet that moves in only one direction, we create a situation that is far from stable and which can act in the interest of only one group of people—those who want to see the United Kingdom broken up.
As the clause stands, the elements of the slippery slope and the one-way ratchet are present. The amendments, which we tabled in all seriousness, are intended to try to correct that. Their effect is simple. They will ensure that future transfers, after the first tranche of transfers under the order, will be by primary legislation so that this House decides whether the degree of devolution is to be increased in future. If the matter is left to the dynamics of an assembly, it is highly likely, if not inevitable, that there will be pressure constantly to take more and more power to that body. If that is done merely by unamendable order, the inability of this House to do other than exercise a simple and straightforward veto, which would create tensions within the relationship between Cardiff or Swansea and London, will be seen.
We want future transfers of functions to be carried out by primary legislation within this House. They would be major issues and we should take cognisance of the effect that such transfers would have on the integrity of the UK.

Mr. Ron Davies: I appreciate the thoughtful and considered way in which the right hon. Gentleman is approaching this matter. He suggests that he would want a major transfer of powers to be achieved by means of primary legislation but, if he reflects for a moment, he will find that that principle is perfectly compatible with the clause as it stands. A major act of devolution would require primary legislation that conferred powers to the Secretary of State or any other Minister and, in addition, enabled those powers to be subsequently transferred to the assembly by order. If there were to be such a major event, primary legislation would be required.
In that context, we should not only concern ourselves with major transfers of power, but recognise that devolution—even under the Conservative Government—was a rolling process. There were many acts of devolution and transfers of functions to territorial Departments. Now that we are to have a democratic assembly in Cardiff, there is no reason why a mechanism should not be available to transfer those powers by order.

Mr. Ancram: In what the Secretary of State has just said lies the fundamental difference between our view and his view. He is essentially saying that, because it is currently possible to transfer power and devolve administration within the United Kingdom under a unitary Government, there should be no difference when making transfers of functions and administrative power under what is no longer a unitary Government, but a devolved set of Governments. However, there is a fundamental difference because, when a transfer is made under the present set-up in Westminster, he, as the Secretary of State for Scot—Wales. I nearly made the mistake that I suspect I shall make more than once over the next few weeks. He, as Secretary of State for Wales, remains accountable to Parliament and to the Government here for what is done with those devolved or transferred administrative functions or powers because they remain within his purview. Under the proposals whereby a Welsh


assembly is set up, there is a devolving of functional power away from this House—this Parliament—and his responsibility and that accountability no longer exist. Therefore, there is a fundamental distinction to be made.
It is for that reason that we regard the danger of the slippery slope with a careful eye, because we believe that if that danger exists, it will be exercised by those in whose interest it is to do so. The Secretary of State and I may have different views on what is a substantial or significant transfer, but my colleagues and I see in the way in which powers and functions can be transferred an inability for Parliament to exercise the sovereignty and degree of scrutiny that is necessary in those circumstances.

Mr. Denzil Davies: I should probably have looked at the clauses before now; I see some confusion in them, but perhaps I am not reading them correctly. Clause 21 states that the assembly shall exercise only functions passed to it by an Act of Parliament, be that
this Act or any future Act.
If clause 21 is all there is, the right hon. Gentleman has nothing to worry about. However, clause 22 states that transfers can be made by order. Presumably, the right hon. Gentleman intends to address that point.

Mr. Ancram: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who makes my point in a different way. If there was only clause 21, I would feel more reassured, because it suggests that transfers can be made only by Act of Parliament. Clause 21, however, refers to "this Act"—

Mr. Davies: Or any other Act.

Mr. Ancram: Yes, or any other Act. "This Act", which is the primary legislation before us now, goes on to say that under "this Act", functions can be transferred by order. That is why I seek to amend not clause 21, but clause 22, so as to ensure that where the provisions in "this Act" are exercised to transfer functions or powers, that is done not by an order, which is unamendable and largely undebatable, but by primary legislation dealt with in the House so that the full scrutiny of luminaries such as the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) can be brought to bear.

Mr. Ron Davies: Let us not strain unnecessarily on this matter. It is true that clause 21, which now stands part of the Bill, refers to the transfer of functions under "this Act" and that clause 22 refers to orders made under Acts. It is the case that every order transferring powers will have its own originating Act. It was for that purpose that, in the draft order I have tabled, I list the many Acts that currently empower the Secretary of State to lay orders. Clauses 21 and 22 are therefore perfectly compatible.

Mr. Ancram: I am not saying that the clauses are incompatible. It is because they are compatible that they are dangerous. What purports in clause 21 to create a

requirement for primary legislation turns out, in clause 22, to require much less. That is what I am trying to cure with the amendments.
The second area, which is of equal concern, is what I earlier described as the ratchet effect. It is my view and that of my colleagues that where devolution takes place within the United Kingdom, that devolution must be capable of being amended in either direction, as circumstances require, in order to maintain the stability of devolution within the United Kingdom. The Bill, however, effectively creates a one-way ratchet.
I see nothing in the legislation—I look nervously at the right hon. Member for Llanelli in case he sees something—to allow any functions or powers to be transferred back from the Welsh assembly, either to Parliament or to the Government, should circumstances arise that require that to be done. For example, the Secretary of State, who is certainly not infallible, may make a mistake in transferring certain powers or functions. My reading of the Bill is that there is no power and no means by which those powers or functions could be transferred back to him or to any other Secretary of State.

Mr. Ron Davies: The right hon. Gentleman is rerunning last night's debate, when the Opposition attempted unsuccessfully to insert an otiose amendment asserting the supremacy of Parliament. Parliament is supreme and if, at any time, it is perceived that there is any difficulty or that powers have been vested in the assembly inadvertently, improperly or against the wishes of the Government of the day, the Government or Parliament can reverse that error.

Mr. Ancram: The Secretary of State suggests that we should seek confrontation in such cases and that is precisely what makes me nervous. He is saying that, if the House believes that the Welsh assembly has too many functions or if the Welsh assembly believes that it needs more, we should have a stand-up fight, albeit in the knowledge that this House will win. That sort of behaviour seems designed to generate friction and to create frustration in Wales directed against this House.
I am proposing in a serious amendment a means to establish a simple and clear way in which to transfer back powers when that is in the interests of Wales, the assembly and this House. That would avoid what at the moment is a one-way ratchet.

Mr. Ron Davies: indicated dissent.

Mr. Ancram: The Secretary of State cannot deny which there is a one-way ratchet in the Bill.
We have tabled a series of simple amendments which would cure the two defects in what the Secretary of State would claim is a measure of devolution within the United Kingdom. Returning to a point I made last night, if the Secretary of State is sincere in what he says about the relationship between the assembly and Parliament, he need fear nothing in our amendments because they are consistent with that view. If he resists the amendments, as he resisted the amendment last night, that can only leave us with the suspicion that he does indeed see


devolution as being not an event, but a process—more than that, a process that is travelling in one direction only, towards the eventual break-up of the United Kingdom.

Mr. Rhodri Morgan: Surely the right hon. Gentleman realises that, in these amendments and in his efforts yesterday in respect of the name of the assembly and the declaratory statement about the supremacy of Parliament, he is displaying a very niggling spirit. With his constant references to the dangers, the thin end of the wedge and the slippery slope, he is trying to strangle the Welsh assembly and give it no room to breathe even before it starts work. That is the wrong spirit and, now that the referendum and Second Reading are over, he should get rid of that attitude of mental denial towards the existence of the Welsh assembly. He should accept that the assembly is going to happen. He should not try to diminish it, and reduce its stability and the scope within which it will operate before its first meeting.

Mr. Ancram: I accept that the assembly will be established. I have made that clear, but, as the official spokesman for the Opposition, not for the Government, it is not my job to be dewy-eyed and to say what will happen in a perfect world. It is my job to test the legislation against not the best-case scenarios, but the days when there are problems and difficulties, and when there is confrontation. Let us face it: there will be times when there will be arguments between the Welsh assembly and the House. There have already been arguments between Cardiff county council and the Secretary of State. We know that arguments can happen. I am trying to ensure that when such situations arise, we have in statute the means by which they can be controlled.
Perhaps, as a Scottish lawyer, I am trained to look closely at the small print because it is normally in the detail that one finds the devil. I am doing so on this occasion because I want to see a Welsh assembly established in a way that is secure within the United Kingdom. It worries me more and more that every time I bring up what I believe are essentially safeguards for the position of Wales within the United Kingdom, I am accused of speaking heresy. The concept that it is heresy ever to consider within devolution that power could come back from the devolved assemblies to the centre also worries me because that is the mentality of the one-way street away from the United Kingdom.
I have tabled the amendments in all seriousness because I believe that they improve the legislation. They secure the claims that were made for it by the Secretary of State during the referendum. I hope that for the first time during the Bill's consideration, the Secretary of State will accept that the amendments have been tabled in good faith and will agree to them.

Mr. Denzil Davies: I should like to discuss the interaction of the amendment with clause 21. Perhaps my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State could deal with the point when he replies to the debate.
As I read that clause—at least now, because I read it differently a minute ago—it requires an Act of Parliament to confer or impose functions upon the assembly. The Bill, once enacted, will confer functions and if more functions have to be conferred, that will

have to be done through a future Act. The mechanics of the transfer of those functions are set out in clause 22, which states that that transfer can be done by order. The explanatory note does not say that, but, as I read the Bill now, in future an Act will be required to transfer such functions because clause 21 states:
The Assembly shall have the functions which are … conferred or imposed on the Assembly
under an Act. An Act is, therefore, required to confer those functions. Under clause 22(1)(a), however, the transfer of those functions, to some extent a mechanistic matter, can be done by order.
I may be completely wrong and perhaps my right hon. Friend will clarify the matter because it is important. There appears to be a contradiction between clauses 21 and 22.

Mr. Oliver Letwin: First, I should like to respond briefly to the points raised by the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies).
I believe that it is at least the case that there is a clarity of intention that runs counter to the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion. The statements made by the Secretary of State, the notes on clauses and other statements that have been made about the Bill make it entirely clear that the articulation is at least meant to be—in view of his legal knowledge, I certainly give way to the right hon. Gentleman about the statutory construction of the Bill—that the assembly shall have functions that are granted by whichever Act may have granted powers to the Secretary of State, which under this Bill, once enacted, or any subsequent Act can be transferred by Order in Council.
I therefore take it that the articulation is intended to allow whichever powers are already possessed by any Secretary of State in relation to Wales to be granted to the assembly in due course by Order in Council. If that is a fallacious interpretation of at least the intention of the Bill, I, too, would be grateful if the Secretary of State could make that plain. I am basing my remarks on that assumption, which is at least coherent with what we have been told about the Bill as opposed to the construction placed upon it by the right hon. Member for Llanelli.
I should like to explain why I believe amendments Nos. 45 to 47, which stand in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) and other colleagues, go to the essence of the Bill and are by no means merely incidental to its purposes.
The first point is whether any legislative stability is granted by the Bill, construed at any rate in the fashion that I have just described. That is important for a reason that the Bill makes clear. It provides for the possibility of devolution issues—I believe that that is the phrase that is used—being resolved through a series of quite lugubrious legal mechanics and ultimately by the traditional Committee of the Privy Council. It so provides because it envisages a situation or a series of situations in which there is genuine doubt about whether a power has been devolved. It is a matter of potentially the gravest significance if there is an apparent conflict of laws or jurisdictions.
In those circumstances, and given the great scope for such apparent conflicts, it is of the utmost concern that a body of precedents should be built up by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and other subsidiary


courts that gradually clarifies the area of devolution and reduces the scope for discussion and debate. I imagine that that must be common ground between the Conservative Benches and the Secretary of State and his fellow Ministers. If that is the case, it must be of the greatest importance that there should be legal stability and not a continuous legislative flow or ratchet of the kind to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes alluded. It would be difficult to build up a solid body of precedent if on each occasion the Judicial Committee arrived at its final conclusion and offered a judgment, hey presto, the Secretary of State or another Secretary of State devolved a further power. By doing so, they would re-create an area of confusion that had apparently been clarified.
The amendments are of the utmost importance in the strict constitutional sense because they create stability. They provide for a defined series of powers to be devolved under the proposed Act and avoid the creation of a situation in which there could be legal flux. I should have thought that that aim was common ground. That is of particular importance in connection with the Bill because it provides for a wide and indeterminate set of powers to be devolved.
Clause 22(1)(a) provides
for the transfer to the Assembly of any function so far as exercisable by a Minister of the Crown"—
unspecified—
in relation to Wales".
There is no one in the Chamber, and I suspect no lawyer in England or, indeed, in Wales probably who can guess how the phrase "in relation to Wales" will be taken by the courts over the years, and in particular by the Judicial Committee. Does it refer, for example, to the police in Wales, the prisons in Wales or military bases in Wales? All those topics are currently covered by Acts under which Secretaries of State of one kind or another have order-making and regulation-making powers. As I and my right hon. Friend have construed the clauses, and as the Secretary of State has asked us to construe them, all those powers could be gradually devolved by order to the assembly. In those circumstances, the opportunities for apparent conflicts of law and therefore a need for resolution by the Judicial Committee—hence the necessity of stability—are much greater than would have been the case had that process been limited, as my right hon. Friend's amendments would have made the case, to a specified and clear list of pre-defined powers.

Mr. Rowlands: The third paragraph of the explanatory note—I realise that it is not in the Bill, but let us borrow it for the moment—states:
The Bill allows for further orders to be made, to transfer other Ministerial functions to the Assembly in due course. This gives the opportunity for future Governments to transfer more powers to the Assembly, with Parliament's approval. Other functions can be given to the Assembly directly by Acts of Parliament".
It would seem that there are two routes by which powers can be devolved: by individual Acts of Parliament and by the order-making process specified in the Bill. We could do with clarity when it comes to which route will be used and which function will go down which route.

Mr. Letwin: The hon. Gentleman is right about what we are told in the notes on clauses. To offer further support to that view, having studied the Secretary of State's statements over the past few months—and those of the Under-Secretary of State—it is abundantly clear that the hon. Gentleman is echoing the interpretation that has been placed upon the matter by the Welsh Office.
It is clear also that there is a distinction between those powers that may be devolved by order and those that will require an Act. I think that the distinction—no doubt the Secretary of State will explain this in his reply—is between those Acts that already confer an order-making power upon a Secretary of State in relation to Wales and situations in which there is no such pre-existing order-making power for any Secretary of State, where therefore the transfer of powers would require a new Act. It is to the first group to which we are addressing the amendment.
The problem is that there is such wide scope in English law. We on the Opposition Benches, alas, must take some of the responsibility for that, as must some on the Government Benches. In my view, there has been a regrettable tendency over the past 50 years for Governments to create wide discretion for Secretaries of State to make orders in an increasing range of affairs. The result is that many of the powers—I have so far been able to identify 461—relate to Wales in some dimension. The scope that will be available under the Act for the transfer of powers by order will be not unlimited but enormously wide. That being so, the necessity to return to Parliament for primary legislation—the second route to which the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) referred—is accordingly limited.
I move on to what is, in my mind, an even more important consideration. Throughout the Bill there are bases, almost as if they had been included on purpose, though I suspect by oversight, for amplifying the chances of a conflict of laws. I shall give one example. Section 147 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988—one of the items referred to specifically in the Secretary of State's draft order—provides that the Secretary of State may
at any time by order make such supplementary, incidental, consequential or transitional provision as appears to him to be necessary or expedient for the general purposes or any particular purposes of the Act.
The provision continues:
An order under this section may in particular make provision for amending, repealing or revoking … any provision of an Act passed before or in the same session as this Act.
I draw the Secretary of State's attention to this point because I very much doubt whether he or his draftsmen have attended to it to date.
We have an Act—regrettably a Conservative Act—that enables a Secretary of State to make orders, some of them definitely in relation to Wales because the 1988 Act had application to Wales. It provides that an order can amend or change a piece of primary legislation passed by the House. It is not a unique example. Indeed, there are many others.
Power could be devolved, through the Bill, to the assembly to make orders to amend or repeal Acts enacted by the House of Commons. If ever I have heard the basis for a conflict of laws, that is it. It accentuates the necessity


for legal stability so that the grave question of what we are to do about such a conflict can be governed by gradually accumulating precedent in the Judicial Committee.
I fear that the situation is far worse than that. There is a severe—

Mr. Ruane: What a ray of sunshine.

Mr. Letwin: I apologise for not being able to offer much sunshine. I fear that the clouds are gathering. When I come to the end of my remarks, I fear that there will be a rainstorm.

Mr. Ron Davies: I am following closely the arguments that the hon. Gentleman is developing. I appreciate the clarity with which he is arguing his case. He is fundamentally wrong, however, if he thinks that clause 22 would allow the Welsh assembly in any way to exercise powers conferred on it by means of secondary legislation to repeal or amend existing primary legislation. His interpretation is wrong.

Mr. Letwin: It would be extremely helpful to hear from the Secretary of State how the following articulation does not apply. Clause 22(1)(a) gives the Secretary of State the power to convey powers to the Welsh assembly where, as I understand it, the Secretary of State, or another Secretary of State, already has regulation-making powers. I do not think that that is a matter of contention between the Secretary of State and my right hon. and hon. Friends, although the construction of the right hon. Member for Llanelli would alter the matter.
I have cited an example of a particular order-making power that already exists in an Act and gives a Secretary of State—astonishingly to my mind, but factually—the right to amend Acts preceding the Act under which such power is given. That being so, I cannot understand how it would not follow that power currently exercisable by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions could not be transferred by order to the Assembly. It falls on the Secretary of State not merely to deny that but to explain what in the Act would stop that happening. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will do that when he replies.
Unfortunately, the situation is far worse than I have described. We are faced with a severe democratic deficit. It has been a principle—I, for one, acknowledge it—much espoused by Labour Members that we should adhere to the broad format that has been approved, albeit by a narrow majority, by the people of Wales in a referendum. Surely that format should include adhering to the broad scope of powers that the people, at the time that they voted in the referendum, imagined would be accorded to the assembly. If it merely refers to legislative powers in the widest sense and therefore merely constrains the Government, for example, from providing tax-varying powers, that would be odd. It is surely consistent with the general thesis that, on the contrary, there should be some symmetry between what the Bill permits in respect of the transfer of powers and what the people, when they voted in the referendum, thought would be the case. Surely there ought also to be some symmetry between what the people who first elect the Members of the Assembly think will be the relevant powers and what subsequently transpire to be the powers.
The problem is that that is not the case. If we consider the articulation of clauses 22(1)(a), 22(2) and 23 and schedule 2, it is clear that—I half believe that this must be a matter of mis-drafting—before the Bill becomes an Act it is mandated that the Secretary of State should produce a draft order similar to that already produced, and hence specify what he currently intends to transfer. It is clear that after the Bill becomes an Act it will be no longer necessary for the Secretary of State's list of powers subsequently to be transferred to bear any relation to schedule 2. That is the articulation as I construct it. It is the articulation that is verified by the notes on clauses so far as I can make out. I have heard nothing said by the Secretary of State that would deny that.
The situation is, however, worse than that. We discovered that yesterday in what I thought was an intensely revealing moment of honesty. In an unusual parliamentary occasion we were vouchsafed by Labour Members an explanation of what they had been saying on the doorsteps during the referendum campaign about what the Bill would achieve. We were told in so many words—I think twice but certainly once—by Labour Members that they had told the electorate, and had heard many people say, that the Bill would achieve the end of the possibility of measures such as the poll tax in Wales. It was said that it would not have been possible to bring about the poll tax in Wales had the Bill before us been an Act at that time.
When the Minister summed up, I asked him whether the example that he was using—he said that banding would have been possible in Wales in a different fashion from that in England—demonstrated that he knew what he was talking about, because there was no banding in terms of the poll tax. The Minister then seemed slightly uncomfortable and moved on to another topic, but he failed to note the deep malaise and deep democratic deficit that the exchange revealed. The powers in the Local Government Finance Act 1988, the poll tax Act, under which Secretaries of State, before the Act was amended by the more recent Local Government Finance Acts, were able to make orders—hence the powers that, in principle under clause 22(1)(a), could be transferred—are extraordinarily limited and could by no means have prevented the poll tax.
To be precise, so far as I can determine, the Welsh assembly would have had the following magnificent powers. It would have been able to decide how to treat houses that crossed borders between local government boundaries. Probably only one house per 100,000 is seriously in that position because of the way in which building regulations work. The assembly would have been able to decide how to treat students in part-time—not full-time—education. It would have been able to deal with co-ownership—a rare phenomenon. Finally and most magnificently, it would have been able to deal with how to treat the poll tax for the dead. Among the living, at a rough estimate, 95 per cent. of the population would not have been in the slightest way affected by the assembly.
At this stage of the argument, we have established that the Bill creates a flux that will prevent a stable body of precedent law to solve serious disputes about overlapping and potentially conflicting laws. We have established that the Bill has a hugely wide effect that will, over time, transfer an unknown series of powers that were not announced at the time of the referendum and will not be known to the electors even when they first elect the Members of the Assembly. Furthermore, it would not


have done the major thing Labour Members tell us they announced to the people of Wales at the referendum as an advantage—solving a problem such as the poll tax.

Mr. Llwyd: I do not know how much campaigning the hon. Gentleman undertook in Wales during the referendum campaign, but I assure him that one of the accusations that the nationalist party levelled at the Labour party was that the assembly would not prevent things such as the poll tax. That is at variance with what he has said.

Mr. Letwin: That is an interesting point and I have no doubt that what the hon. Gentleman says is nothing but the truth. It shows that one set of people were trying to sell the proposal as perfect because it would achieve something—which it will not achieve as so drafted—and that another set of people correctly accused the Bill, as it would have been about to be, of not achieving that result. However, some people must have listened to the Labour party because, as we know, there were far more Labour voters in Wales than Plaid Cymru voters.

Mr. Ron Davies: The point that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary made in the debate yesterday is that the poll tax Act could not have been passed in the way that it was if there had been a Welsh assembly. If the power to implement that Act had been vested in the Welsh assembly at the time, the Act would have had to be different. Implementation would have had to be provided for in the Act itself and it would have had to be passed through this Parliament in its entirety, not relying on the Welsh assembly to implement it by means of secondary legislation.

Mr. LetwinM: I shall not embarrass the Secretary of State by reading that part of Hansard that relates to the comments made yesterday by the Under-Secretary, but if he reads it he will find that, although that would have been a much wiser thing for the Under-Secretary to say, it was not what he said. It would have been wiser because it would have been arguable, but it would still have been false.
Under the Local Government Finance Act 1988, it was not necessary to delegate any wide range of powers to any Secretary of State. A remarkable feature of the Act is that almost the only power that it delegates is the one that is most constitutionally offensive to me: the power to alter by amendment certain Acts of Parliament that already exist.
I fear that the situation is yet worse and it tells us much about what is happening in this Bill. The Secretary of State has produced a draft order relating to these clauses. We are told that it is an early draft order. For that we have much to be thankful because the draft order displays either a mechanistic approach, to the point where we must be dealing not with Departments of State but with daleks, or a slap-dash approach to the point where we must be dealing with something that was written late at night by someone overtaxed by overwork.
I shall give some examples. The draft order refers to the Emergency Powers Act 1964 as one of the Acts under which powers will be devolved to the assembly. There is

a minor point that betrays, as so often with minor points, an attitude to drafting. On inspection, the draft order should refer not to that Act, but to the Emergency Powers Act 1920 as amended by the Emergency Powers Act 1964.
Leave that aside. The important point is that the way in which the Emergency Powers Act works is that Her Majesty proclaims an emergency. Subsequently, powers are conferred on a Secretary of State by Orders in Council and he is thereby empowered at high speed to make regulations under those powers, which he lays before Parliament.
The draft order implicitly tells us that that process is to be devolved to the assembly. Which part of it? Manifestly, under clause 22(1)(a), the role played by the Secretary of State. What is being said is that the Welsh assembly will be able to make regulations, which it will presumably have to lay before the House, at a time of emergency.
I do not have the faintest idea how the assembly would go about laying regulations before the House. I doubt whether the Secretary of State has the faintest idea. Beyond that, if the assembly were to lay regulations and the House were to deny the regulations—at a time of emergency of all times—we would have a classic conflict between two democratic bodies.
I cannot imagine that the Welsh Office, the Secretary of State or his colleagues intended to create the opportunity for such a conflict at such a time. It must be the result of having included everything they could think of, bar the kitchen sink.
I say bar the kitchen sink, but hardly. The draft order contains a series of items known as the Burial Acts. The powers under them are to be transferred. In particular, the draft order contains the Burial Act 1852. I admit that I was not previously deeply familiar with that Act. I went to the trouble of looking it up. It is an Act to amend
the Laws concerning the Burial of the Dead in the Metropolis".
It contains almost exclusively today section 48, under which Brompton cemetery—not, as far as I am aware, in Wales—may be sold by direction of the Treasury and in the meantime used for interments. Someone has included in the draft order—and laid it before this House—an Act that has not the slightest connection with Wales and never could.
I admit that it is not, in a sense, important because I suppose that the Secretary of State, after these admonitions, will ask some official who is awake and who is not overtaxed by work to go back through the list, to investigate what on earth he has put down and to try to come up with a list that is accurate, relates to Wales and does not contain any constitutional abnormalities. The point is nevertheless important because it shows the attitude with which this has been taken forward and, much more important, the attitude with which it might be taken forward were the Bill to go in this shape to the Queen, without having been amended in the way in which my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes has suggested.
If my right hon. Friend's amendments are accepted, the House will be able to clarify the points made by the right hon. Member for Llanelli and questions of legislative stability. We would include in the Bill a set of well-considered, applicable Welsh measures so that at least we knew for the time being, until Parliament decided to change its mind in an orderly fashion, what would be


devolved, in a way that is broadly symmetrical with what people expected during the referendum campaign and with what electors expect when they first elect Members.
I expect, alas, that the Government will nevertheless reject the amendments, but if they could pause, it would be good not just for this Parliament and the Welsh assembly, but for the Government's reputation.

Mr. Ruane: Thank you, Mr. Lord, for the opportunity to speak in the debate.
I want to speak on the transfer of ministerial functions to the assembly. I believe that it was the overcentralisation of those functions during the past 18 years that led to the growth of a movement for devolution in Wales.
The Tory phenomenon of centralising all power affected not only Wales but the entire United Kingdom. Mrs. Thatcher sat, like an octopus, in London, her tentacles stretched to every corner of the land, searching out alternative power bases. When they were detected, they were mercilessly squeezed and drained of all power. That power was taken to the centre. That happened to the Greater London council, the municipal councils and many functions of local government. Those powers remained at the centre and indeed were enhanced under the previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major).
However, it was in Wales that overcentralisation hit the hardest, and it is in Wales that, after 18 years of Tory rule, we have the worst housing and health, and the lowest pay, in Britain. The key decision makers who presided over that process were not affected by their decisions. They did not use public housing or the national health service. They were cocooned on fat salaries. But the ordinary people in Wales—those who were waiting for hospital treatment, those living in slum conditions in houses in multiple occupation, and those on poverty pay—felt, and still feel, the legacy of bad decision making. The transfer of the powers outlined in the Bill will allow us to tackle those Welsh problems at the grass roots.
The philosophy of devolving power or transferring powers away from the centre and possibly out of one's control—out of Labour control, in this case—is alien to many Conservative Members. They cannot even devolve power and decision making to the grass roots in their party.

Mr. Evans: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Ruane: I shall give way in a moment.
In complete contrast, we have a Secretary of State for Wales, my right hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies), who has worked tirelessly for many years to divest himself of the power that he now has as Secretary of State for Wales.
These actions are taken from a position of political strength. We have one of the largest parliamentary majorities that the country has ever had. The Tories have been wiped off the political map of Wales at council and parliamentary level. Even the Tory pundits say that we shall be in power for another 10 years and yet we have chosen as one of our first pieces of legislation the establishment of an assembly for Wales.
I have reservations about proportional representation, but using a PR system in the assembly elections will mean that Labour may not even control that assembly.
The transfer of ministerial functions to the assembly as outlined in the Government of Wales Bill will, I believe, make for better, more democratic, more accountable government in Wales.

Mr. Evans: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman—

Hon. Members: He has finished.

Mr. Livsey: I want to make a few points about amendments Nos. 45, 46 and 47. As I interpret it, amendment No. 45 specifies that functions may be transferred to the Welsh assembly only as far as they are exercisable by the Secretary of State—as opposed to functions of Ministers as far as exercisable in relation to Wales, as the Bill states.
Amendment No. 46 seems to allow Her Majesty, by Order in Council, to transfer powers back from the assembly to Ministers of the Crown. Amendment No. 47 removes the requirement for orders varying or revoking powers of the assembly to be approved by the assembly. Those amendments seem to the Liberal Democrats to weaken the powers of the assembly, and we shall not support them.
The amendments seek to limit the powers of the assembly to those exercisable by the Secretary of State. Surely the aim of the Welsh assembly is to devolve to Wales decision-making powers on matters that affect Wales. Those powers are not always exercised by the Secretary of State for Wales. All fields listed in schedule 2 should be transferred, regardless of whether they come under the powers of the Secretary of State for Wales or other Ministers. The amendments would weaken the assembly. If the assembly's powers were limited, the confidence of the Welsh people in the assembly's work would be reduced.
Amendment No. 46 allows functions to be transferred back from the assembly to Westminster by Order in Council. If the assembly existed under the constant threat of having its powers withdrawn, its credibility to take decisions would be damaged. The assembly must have the courage to make tough choices and should not feel hindered by threats from central Government that might be made if we had a Government who did not support devolution. Amendment No. 47 weakens the assembly by removing the right to consider Orders in Council that vary or revoke its powers.
For those of us who support devolution, the assembly is a long-term project. To be successful, it must feel sure that it has a long-term future. In his erudite speech, the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) spoke about a democratic deficit, but surely the amendments would weaken the assembly's powers. I believe that the democratic deficit lies in the amendments and that the democratic deficit is actually remedied in the assembly.

Mr. Rhodri Morgan: I want to expand, briefly, on the remarks I made when I intervened on the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) when he originally spoke.
The amendments seek to destabilise devolution before it starts, and it would be unhealthy for a new assembly to feel that at any stage its powers could be reversed. Because of


the supremacy of Parliament, the assembly's powers can be reversed, just as in 1972 Stormont was suspended—brought to an end—for 25 years. The supremacy of Parliament ensures that that process can, in theory, take place, but any amendment that injects it into the Bill at this stage seems a deliberate attempt to destabilise the Bill and is, therefore, a destructive amendment—a wrecking amendment, I think it is fair to say—in the psychology of passing the Bill. I strongly oppose amendments Nos. 45, 46 and 47 because they simply seek to downplay the significance and stability of the corpus of power that will be transferred.
I believe we are all agreed that the Bill would not bring about a large measure of devolution. By the standards of devolution of the Government of Ireland Act 1920, or of the Scotland Bill that we are considering for the next few weeks, this is a moderate measure of devolution. I believe that is common ground between all hon. Members.

Mr. Ancram: Does the hon. Gentleman envisage, or could he ever envisage, circumstances in which a power or function transferred to the assembly might require to be passed back to the House or to the Secretary of State?

Mr. Morgan: Of course—in the circumstances that the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned. As was described by the enormous inverted pyramid created by the long speech by the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), things can be done in error and may require to be reversed. In so far as this Parliament is supreme, that can be done, and I do not doubt that it is conceivable to construct circumstances in which that could be done. However, the amendments tabled by the right hon. Member for Devizes follow the pattern of the amendments that he tabled last night.
8 pm
The idea is to destabilise devolution before it has even started and not to give it a fair chance. Devolution requires a fair wind from this House. This is not a large measure of devolution, but we do want it to work—with the united support of the House of Commons. Once we accept that it is going to happen—witness the majorities in the referendum and on Second Reading—there is no point in the continual attempts by the Tories to chip away at it. Why not be constructive once in a while?
The hon. Member for West Dorset spoke of powers being transferred by Order in Council going beyond the powers listed in schedule 2. When the right hon. Member for Devizes was asked for an example of the dangers to which he keeps referring, all he could do was repeat phrases such as "one-way ratchet", "slippery slope", and "thin end of the wedge". All these words have been used since time immemorial to argue against change of any kind—universal suffrage, women's votes, the Great Reform Act 1832. Of course, there is no substance to the argument whatever—

Mr. Letwin: I would ask the hon. Gentleman to consider clause 22(1)(a), which provides for the transfer to the assembly of
any function so far as exercisable by a Minister of the Crown in relation to Wales".

How is that circumscribed? I would then ask the hon. Gentleman to look at clause 23(2), a related clause not covered by the amendments:
Subject to subsection (3), an Order in Council under section 22 may make provision about any function of a Minister of the Crown (including a function conferred or imposed after the passing of this Act)".
I should like to know how the hon. Gentleman reconciles that with his assertion that there is no evidence of a wide discretion going well beyond the powers specified in schedule 2.

Mr. Morgan: In his speech, the hon. Gentleman contented himself with a general reference to the notes on clauses—

Mr. Letwin: indicated dissent.

Mr. Morgan: I am sorry, but when the hon. Gentleman reads Hansard tomorrow he will see that that is what he did. He did not specify where in the notes on clauses he derived the authority for what he said. Of course, they do not offer any basis for claiming that Orders in Council can take powers extending beyond schedule 2 powers.

Mr. Letwin: I am sorry if the hon. Gentleman has misconstrued my remarks—perhaps I was not clear enough. My reference to the notes on clauses was made in response to a point of statutory construction raised by right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies)—a quite separate issue.
What the hon. Gentleman is talking about now is covered by the Bill itself. I have already read out to him clauses 22(1)(a) and 23(2). I ask him again how he can possibly deny that they mean what they mean—that they confer the ability to transfer powers by Order in Council beyond the scope of this Act. I remind him of the words:
including a function conferred or imposed after the passing of this Act".

Mr. Morgan: I repeat: when the hon. Gentleman reads Hansard tomorrow, he will see that he quoted the notes on clauses as his authority.

Mr. Denzil Davies: Might I suggest that the answer is that this power is circumscribed by clause 21, which states that there must be another Act of Parliament first.

Mr. Morgan: The matter may have to be resolved in the wind-up speeches or in correspondence. Still, the hon. Member for West Dorset attempted to justify what the right hon. Member for Devizes could not justify when asked to demonstrate how the Bill constituted a slippery slope. That justification seemed to be based on the hon. Gentleman's perception that there was a general power to extend the scope of the measure to areas such as the police which are not listed in schedule 2. And the only example the right hon. Member for Devizes could come up with was the row with the leader of Cardiff city council, not a legislative issue at all.
Hence the hon. Member for West Dorset attempted to fill the gap by misconstruing—

Mr. Letwin: I do not want to try the patience of the Committee, but I do want to ask the hon. Gentleman to


request clarification from the Secretary of State of the relationship between clauses 21, 22 and 23, and our interpretation of it. We need to know whether the Secretary of State's interpretation is consonant with what I have been saying or with what the right hon. Member for Llanelli says. If the latter is correct, the Secretary of State is no longer in alliance with Plaid Cymru: he is in a truly desperate position, because the whole attempt to allow the progressive devolution of powers under the Bill is skewered. If the Secretary of state claims that the right hon. Member for Llanelli is right and we are wrong, that will constitute a remarkable statement.

Mr. Morgan: The hon. Gentleman is being a Jeremiah—positing two impossible positions for the Secretary of State: either there is to be no devolution, or devolution will be so horrific that we must resist the whole Bill. That leaves us unable to construct a Bill of any shape that will be proof against both attacks. Either devolution will go too far, and must be stopped; or the Bill will not contain any powers worth transferring, so we will be left with no Bill. Both propositions are absurd.
Devolution is going to happen, so the Tories should stop their niggling and nitpicking. It is not up to me to seek clarification from the Secretary of State. I am sure that the hon. Member for West Dorset has already asked Ministers to give him clear answers at the end of the debate.

Mr. Evans: The hon. Gentleman has accused us all of being Jeremiahs, when all we are doing is seeking clarification of important points. Surely that is what the Committee is for? The hon. Gentleman himself is like one of the Sunshine Boys—he can see nothing wrong with the Bill.

Mr. Morgan: That is quite absurd. The Conservatives are continually trying to denigrate and downgrade the process of devolution. We heard it last night, we have heard it again tonight. And their only argument is the slippery slope—which just goes to show that they have no argument. As I have said, all the right hon. Member for Devizes could produce was an argument about the location of the assembly with Cardiff city council—

Mr. Ancram: indicated dissent.

Mr. Morgan: That was the right hon. Gentleman's only example of the slippery slope. It is a false and empty argument. The problem is that the right hon. Gentleman has still not really accepted the fact that the Bill has had its Second Reading, that the referendum has taken place—

Mr. Jenkin: The abuse that the hon. Gentleman is heaping on us is in no way justified. Can he give us an example of any country in the world where there are not constant disputes—possibly not always acrimonious—between the various tiers of government to which various responsibilities have been ascribed? That has certainly happened ever since local government was invented in this country. We see that between the members of the European Union and the EU institutions. We see that in the tensions between the Lander and the national Government in Germany. We see that in the United States in the argument about states' rights and the federal Government. Through the process of devolution, we are

setting up a constant tension. It is absurd to suggest that this will be the first example of its kind where tension will never occur. If that is the premise of the Bill, we are going down an extremely dangerous road.

Mr. Morgan: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that brief intervention. Nothing that I said could be construed, even by him, as implying that devolution in this or any other case does not require a disputes resolution mechanism. Of course it does. It also requires a resource transfer mechanism. Every other devolution does, as well.
The hon. Gentleman is attempting to deny my argument that the right hon. Member for Devizes failed to provide any example to justify his constant repetition and reliance on the empty argument of the slippery slope, which has been used from time immemorial by people who have no argument, other than to say, "I don't like change and I don't like the Bill. I can't think why I don't like it. My gut instinct tells me I don't like it, but I can't think of an argument, so I'll say it's a slippery slope to something else."
When one considers a Bill, one considers the Bill, not whether it is about something else. That is what we are doing. If the right hon. Gentleman has no better argument than the one-way ratchet, the thin end of the wedge and the slippery slope, he knows that his arguments are empty of consequence.

Mr. Owen Paterson: The debate has been fascinating. It goes to the heart of the problem that the Government have brought upon themselves. There is no clear idea of what the assembly will be. The Secretary of State assures us frequently that this Parliament is sovereign. That comment is presumably addressed to the 75 per cent. of the electorate who did not vote or voted no.
The Government understand that there is not a whole-hearted welcome in Wales for a major measure of devolution. That is why there are no tax-raising powers, and it is why our friends the nationalists are unhappy with the proposal. They see it as only a start. They have made that clear. Somewhere in the middle there is the Welsh establishment, which is well represented on the Labour Benches. I see those hon. Members weekly in the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs. They have a woolly, bland idea that Wales has a grievance, Wales has been done down over the past 18 years and the creation of an assembly with 60 assembly men—probably superannuated ex-county councillors—will solve all Wales's problems.
The muddle has been brilliantly exposed by my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin). It is clear in clauses 21 and 22 which, to me—a layman—are contradictory. The Government should not have rushed into their proposals. They should have studied other federal systems. In the United States, there is a clear division of powers between the powers held by the federal states and those of the federal Government in Washington. The position is similar between the Länder and the central Government in Bonn. The powers are clearly defined and there is a balance of powers.

Mr. Swayne: Does my hon. Friend accept that although there are much tighter definitions of the division of powers, they still give rise to disputes between the


Länder and the federal Government? We are warned by the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) that we are Jeremiahs and that there is no slippery slope, but in fact there is a slope that will be greased continually by hon. Members below the Gangway on the Opposition Benches to create the grievances and pressures to which my hon. Friend has drawn attention.

Mr. Paterson: I whole-heartedly welcome that intervention. I am speaking about Germany and America, two countries where there is a properly constituted federal system. Here, we have a muddle. We will have an assembly in Wales with no powers to raise taxes, and a Parliament in Scotland with tax-raising powers. There is already a major imbalance, with England unhappily in the middle, paying the bills.
I draw attention to another unhappy example that has arisen in recent years—the contrast between the positions of the Czechs and of the Slovaks. For years, the Slovaks built up a grievance and claimed that they were done down, although the Czechs were paying the bills and subsidising them. For years, the Slovaks pushed them, and eventually they pushed the Czechs too far. I can see that happening with Wales.
We must look at the worst case. [Interruption.] When one conducts due diligence, one considers the worst case. In Committee, we should consider the possibilities where we have a different regime—a different Government in power with a majority in the Chamber, or possibly a minority Government. According to various exciting reports, the Secretary of State may be in the assembly and someone else may take his place at Westminster. What happens if another party attains a majority in the assembly? There will be real conflict. If one examines clauses 21 and 22 in the light of a hostile assembly driving against a weak Secretary of State in a minority Government in this Chamber, one can see that it will be fraught.

Mr. Wigley: The hon. Gentleman has made several passing comments in this direction. Is it not the case that what he fears is a hostile assembly that is totally out of kilter with a Conservative Government at Westminster? He is trying to organise an easy life for that Conservative Government. He is not concerned with the well-being of Wales.

Mr. Paterson: No, I had not considered the possibility. I am considering the possibility of a minority Labour Administration, with a strong nationalist element in the assembly. It will not work. Looking at clauses 21 and 22 under those circumstances, I see major conflict lying ahead. My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) gave us the example of America, where there is a carefully balanced system, yet there are continual problems with transfers of federal funds to make that arrangement work.
The Bill has not been thought through. It is a muddled compromise between trying to assuage the limited number of nationalists, who scored only about 10 per cent. of the poll in the general election—[Interruption.] they got far fewer votes than we did—and the vast majority of the Welsh population, who are not interested in the project

and would prefer the money to be spent on hospitals, schools, roads and their farms, in the current crisis. The third group is the Welsh intelligentsia.
The Secretary of State has not produced a workable compromise. We are right to propose the amendments. The Bill is a woolly experiment disappearing into the future—we do not know where—whereas it should go forth on a firm basis, with clearly defined powers. Any further powers should be passed through a fresh Act, as suggested by the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies). [Interruption.]

Mrs. Betty Williams: I have sat patiently, waiting for something to happen, and it has happened with the arrogant statement of the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson). You have used the word "woolly" twice. You have used the word "woolly" to describe your—

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. The hon. Lady must sit down when I am on my feet.

Mrs. Williams: I am sorry, Mr. Lord.

The Second Deputy Chairman: It would be helpful if the hon. Lady would use the correct parliamentary language. It is interesting that when we depart from that, the temperature starts to rise. I would be grateful if the temperature could go down a little and we could get back to the amendment in hand.

Mrs. Williams: I apologise to you, Mr. Lord, and to the Committee. I claim to be a fairly new Member, but I shall do my best to use parliamentary language from now on.
The hon. Member for North Shropshire used the word woolly twice. He described the view of his colleagues in the Welsh Affairs Select Committee as woolly. He used the word woolly to describe "this experiment", as he calls it. I take exception to that. I am sure that my hon. Friends also take exception to such language.
My predecessor in the constituency of Conwy was Sir Wyn Roberts, who sits in the other place. I shall quote what he said. Perhaps right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition Benches would like to take a leaf from his book.

The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. This is an intervention, I take it, not a speech. Interventions should be reasonably brief.

Mrs. Williams: May I also ask the hon. Gentleman to correct one thing? He referred to assembly men. I would like him to apologise to the Committee.

Mr. Paterson: That was a splendid intervention. The hon. Lady has even managed to get her name on the Annunciator. That must be the intervention of the week award. Many congratulations to her.
Quite seriously, if the hon. Lady has taken exception to the expression woolly, I apologise. I had no intention of insulting any hon. Member or the Welsh Affairs Select Committee. I am one of a very small minority of two on the Welsh Affairs Select Committee who take a different view from the rest. There is an extraordinary consensus


among the rest of the Select Committee who like what is being proposed. I do not and I like to express my views clearly, but if the hon. Lady has taken exception to the word woolly, I am quite happy to withdraw it.

Mr. Letwin: I shall not make a lengthy intervention. I ask my hon. Friend to withdraw his withdrawal. When the Secretary of State and a former Secretary of State are wholly at variance about the fundamental meaning of clauses 21 and 22, I see no opportunity to use any word other than woolly.

Mr. Paterson: I am pleased that my hon. Friend agrees with what I am trying to express. How about totally muddled? The goal is muddled. The mechanism is muddled. The Bill is muddled. Would that satisfy my hon. Friend?

Mr. Letwin: indicated assent.

Mr. Paterson: I urge the House to support the Conservative amendments. We must have the start of this venture clearly marked down in black and white, as we do not know where it will go. The examples that I have given show that we need a clear, firm start.

Mr. Dalyell: I did not intervene in the speech of the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) because I knew that my intervention would be too long, and that the same fate would befall me as befell my hon. Friend the Member for Conwy (Mrs. Williams).
It is often said in the House that an hon. Member will excuse another if he does not follow what was said by a previous hon. Member. The hon. Gentleman will excuse me if I follow him very precisely. It was some six years ago that the all-party heritage group from the House—it was not a freebie, I hasten to say, as we paid for it ourselves—went to Czechoslovakia, led by the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir P. Cormack), who is now shadow deputy Leader of the House. We had the opportunity of a two-and-a-half-hour meeting—not long before he died—with the late Alexander Dubcek. He was just about to go off on one of the many visits that he had to make to Bratislava, but he explained in detail some of the problems of the Slovaks and the Czechs. If I were scratched very far, this is one of the things that I fear about the proposed legislation: that it will lead, eventually, to the same divorce—I think that that is the right word—as between the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It is a very serious matter.
We had a taste in the debate of things to come. I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan). If he were a Member of the Welsh assembly, do not think for a moment from the tone of what he was saying that he would surrender all sorts of things that he believes—genuinely and rightly from his point of view—are in the province of the Welsh assembly.
I come back to a point that was made on 13 January, at column 210 of the Official Report, by the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne). A great deal depends on an assumption of friendliness and amity. I wish that that were true, because the truth of the matter is that we are back to 1977–79, when Enoch Powell coined the phrase that the whole debate had the smell of death about it. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli

(Mr. Davies) said to me—rightly and sotto voce—there is, of course, a great difference on this occasion. The Treasury Bench has the votes, which it did not have last time. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales is in a much stronger position than were John Smith and James Callaghan, so that makes a difference. We have just had a taste of all the difficulties that are exhumed by parliamentary debate.

Mr. Rhodri Morgan: I think that my hon. Friend is referring in part to me. I do not know how carefully he was listening to my remarks, or whether he was here, but in answer to the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), who was making a rather noisy sedentary intervention, I specifically said that no measure of devolution could possibly work without an effective disputes resolution mechanism. My hon. Friend cannot possibly reconcile that with what he said about my remarks. He referred to me as believing that devolution was dependent on friendly relations between this Parliament and the Welsh assembly. I ask my hon. Friend to withdraw what he was implying in regard to what I said. I was anxious to ensure that there is an effective disputes resolution mechanism.

Mr. Dalyell: No offence was meant whatever. There really was not. All I was saying was that people in the assembly who are as vigorous as my hon. Friend will demand certain things. We have to leave it at that. In a sense, I was paying my hon. Friend a back-handed compliment about his vigour.
I must not intrude at any length. I ask one question of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. In the Official Report of 12 January, at column 66, there is a well-sculptured speech by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr. Davis), who is Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. Frankly, after reading about three paragraphs into his speech—I speak as a member of the Public Accounts Committee long ago—I thought that it had the imprimatur of the Comptroller and Auditor General, or at least his acquiescence. After I had read and re-read it, I suspected that it was carefully considered and, as the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee is certainly entitled to do, that it was cleared with the Comptroller and Auditor General.
Where is the authority of the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons in all this? If the House of Commons is to be responsible for raising the money for Scotland and Wales, surely the House of Commons has some capacity—indeed, duty—to be able to monitor it. I am not sure of the answer to that question, but I believe that the question is raised in these amendments. I shall be extremely interested in my right hon. Friend's answer, at his convenience, as to precisely what is the authority of the Public Accounts Committee in relation to expenditure that has been devolved to the Welsh assembly.

Mr. John Hayes: I know Wales quite well, and many of the people whom I know in Wales are at a loss to know why the Government have pursued this policy. The part of Wales that I know best is Clwyd, whose people voted against the assembly in quite heavy numbers. As I say, the people there are at a loss to understand the Government's driving motivation in pursuing the assembly.
There could be one of three principal motives for the measure. First, the measure could be designed mainly to pacify those who want to pursue independence. It could be an electoral move; a politically motivated step. Secondly, it could be a genuine step; a deliberate step towards independence; part of a process—a notion to which I shall return. Thirdly, it could be a misguided attempt to strengthen the Union.
The first of those motives would exacerbate the problem rather than solve it. Hon. Members may say that the fire of independence has already been lit, but I am reminded that for most of the first part of its history Plaid Cymru was more concerned with eisteddfods than with assemblies. Its first leader was principally concerned with the cultural identity of Wales. [Interruption.] My hon. Friends will acknowledge that Welsh nationalism has always been a rather different animal from Scots nationalism. It has always been concerned largely—I will not say solely—with the cultural identity of Wales, not always with its political identity, in the same way as Scots nationalism has. But perhaps that is because the Welsh are a more lyrical, musical and literary people, although some Scots may disagree with that, including those on the Opposition Front Bench. If the motive is to pacify nationalism, it will fail, because once the flame is lit, it will burn like a torch, and the demand will be for more and more power for the assembly.
If the motive is to go along the road towards independence, let us have an honest acceptance of that now. Let us have a frank admission that this is part of a process. That precise term was used from the Labour Benches last Friday, when we debated an English Parliament. We were told that constitutional reform was evolutionary; that we were not debating an end product in the Welsh assembly and the Scottish Parliament; that they were part of a process. That was the exact phrase used. If that is so, let us know where the process is leading. Let us know the destination to which we are travelling, rather than obscure it in a cloud of deception.

Mr. Letwin: Does my hon. Friend agree that this is one of the tests of whether the second proposition that he is advancing in his most interesting speech applies? The test is whether the Secretary of State in his reply explains that the right hon. Member for Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies), whom I mistakenly accused of having been a previous Secretary of State, is right in his interpretation of clause 21 and in relation to clause 22, or whether my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram), other hon. Friends and I are right.

Mr. Hayes: That is precisely the point. We are waiting for an explanation from the Secretary of State of where he stands between those two positions. People in Wales are not sure. They are confused and bewildered. They do not know whether the Government see this as an end in itself or as part of a process. This may well raise false expectations and hopes.

Mr. John Smith: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of what he and his hon. Friends are doing to the interests of the Conservative party in Wales this evening? They are destroying them. The hon. Gentleman is in danger of

wiping the Conservative party off the political map. Why do not they concentrate constructively on the amendments?

Mr. Hayes: I suggest that the answer to that question is simple: the Conservative party in Wales, as in the United Kingdom, is driven not by expediency but by principle. If the price of that is unfortunate electoral consequences, so be it. If we were to stray from those honestly held principles, we would be abandoning those who voted for us in Wales for many years and who continue to do so.

Mr. Swayne: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Hayes: In a moment. I am in full flow.
When Plaid Cymru Members and the Welsh Liberal Democrat party talk to us about the extinction of the Welsh Conservative party, let them remember that in terms of votes cast, the Conservative party did rather better in Wales than some people would now like to suggest.

The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. As long as the hon. Gentleman's full flow is down the centre of the river bed, that will be satisfactory, but it would be out of order if he departed too far from the scope of the amendments.

Mr. Hayes: I shall return to a Welsh tributary.
If the second of the propositions that I advanced applies, let us have an honest answer from the Secretary of State this evening. If it is the third, as has been suggested by Labour Members, which is to strengthen the Act of Union, why, if the devolution of power was the principal objective, were the existing structures of local democracy ignored? Why was it not considered appropriate to look sensibly at a devolution of power through the existing local authorities and, if necessary, to constitute—

The Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman must speak within the terms of the amendment. He cannot make a Second Reading speech. His last few sentences certainly struck me as being the material of Second Reading, not of the amendment.

Mr. Swayne: rose—

Mr. Hayes: I give way to my hon. Friend.

Mr. Swayne: Does my hon. Friend agree that amendments Nos. 46 and 47 potentially arrest the process by providing an escape mechanism; a means by which powers can be taken back where necessary? The thrust of some remarks has been that this is a one-way process. The amendments that we have tabled are a solution to that.

Mr. Hayes: The thrust of the amendments is the issue of the ratchet, which was described earlier. If the Government are intent on a process that leads towards independence, clearly they will have considerable objection to the amendments. They will object to them because they will interrupt the process that I have described and provide an escape route. On the other hand, if they are more interested in pacifying nationalists, they


may have a more liberal view of the amendments. If, on my third proposition, their aim is to strengthen the Union, how could they possibly object to the amendments?

Mr. Ron Davies: The hon. Gentleman's argument appears to be that devolution should not be a one-way process and that there should be a mechanism for powers to be transferred back from the assembly to the unitary Government. That, I understand, is his case. Does he think it reasonable that when that reverse flow takes place, it should happen with the consent of the assembly?

Mr. Hayes: It should be done with the consent of the Welsh people. If you are suggesting that—

The Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman is addressing the Chairman.

Mr. Hayes: I am sorry, Sir Alan.
I believe that the Secretary of State was asking whether I thought that the process by which powers were transferred between Parliament and the Welsh assembly should be subject to the further consent of the Welsh people. There is considerable doubt about how that could be expressed. There are four possible ways. It could be expressed through the action of this Parliament, which includes many Welsh Members. It could be put to the assembly. It could be the subject of further direct consultation, given the precedent that has been established by the referendum. Alternatively, it could be subject to proper democratic pressure from the current institutions of local democracy.
It is appropriate to consider why the Government chose not to empower districts, counties and parishes in Wales. By creating the Welsh assembly as an alternative and perhaps fixing its powers more rigidly than those of local government—the relationship between local government and central Government having always been fluid and pragmatic, with shifting balances—they may be disadvantaging the existing local structures, just as they are disadvantaging Parliament and the people of Wales.

Mr. Ron Davies: I thought that the hon. Gentleman's reply to my question was measured, sensible and considered. He said that the specific consent of the Welsh people would be needed to any proposal to transfer powers back from the assembly to the unitary Government. Why does he support an amendment that would not allow for any of that and would allow powers to be taken back from the assembly without the consent of the assembly or the people and on the basis of a one-and-a-half-hour debate and a vote in the House of Commons?

Mr. Hayes: The Secretary of State clearly misheard me. I listed four ways in which the process could take place. He has chosen to alight on only one. I said that one constitutionally appropriate mechanism would be through the House, but he chose to ignore that.

Mr. Letwin: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Secretary of State is espousing a remarkable doctrine? He is arguing that unlimited further transfers, beyond the scope of schedule 2, should be permitted without the

consent of the Welsh people, but that transfers back should not be permitted without such explicit consent in some form that he has not described. Does not that suggest a deep asymmetry? His view seems to be that under no circumstances could the Welsh people democratically object to having further powers thrust on the assembly.

Mr. Hayes: Through his unwise interventions, the Secretary of State has revealed a prejudice towards a one-way transfer of power and a determination to frustrate the will of the people if it falls foul of his objectives.
It is possible that the three propositions that I advanced at the start of my speech do not explain why the Welsh assembly is to be established. Perhaps the Labour party fiercely opposes the amendments because its vision of the United Kingdom constitution and the political system in these islands is entirely different from the vision of the Conservative party and that of the vast majority of the people of Wales and the United Kingdom. Perhaps the Government want a Europe of the regions, with massive power centralised in the institutions of the European Union, supported by acquiescent regions. Perhaps the Labour party considers Wales and Scotland to be merely regions, like the east midlands or the west midlands. What does that say to the people of Wales and Scotland? They are to be made pawns in a bigger game about which, once again, the Government have dishonestly failed to reveal their true intentions.

Mr. Rowlands: I have been listening intently to the debate and trying to work out where we are and where we are going. Amendment No. 45 says:
Functions in the fields specified in Schedule 2, so far as exercisable by the Secretary of State for Wales are hereby transferred to the Assembly.
As I understand that amendment, it would transfer every function currently exercised by the Secretary of State to the assembly. That is interesting, because I thought—

Mr. Letwin: I should like to correct a point. The amendment refers to schedule 2, and, therefore, not to every function exercised by the Secretary of State but to every function in schedule 2.

Mr. Rowlands: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman looks at schedule 2, where he will find that the fields specified are extremely extensive. Pretty well every field is covered.

Mr. Letwin: indicated dissent.

Mr. Rowlands: Yes, it is. Amendment No. 45 does not qualify the transfer of the Secretary of State's powers. It does not qualify, for example, the functions that he exercises along with other Ministers—although even I thought that my right hon. Friend and the Government were proposing that in certain aspects. Curiously, the Opposition are going further—at least on the surface—than even my right hon. Friend suggested on Second Reading.
I shall take this opportunity to ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to clarify which of his powers will


not be transferred. In the explanatory note on the draft order, paragraph 1.9 of the White Paper is repeated. It says:
The Government does not propose to transfer to the Assembly responsibility for functions … These include foreign affairs, defence, taxation, macro-economic policy, policy on fiscal and common markets, social security and broadcasting.
However, on Second Reading, in a series of interventions, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State identified some other areas in which there would not necessarily be a transfer. I think that he will recall that, but, in case he does not, I shall remind him. He said that
it is likely that the draft order that we shall produce, certainly in good time for the Committee stage, when we can have something more than a wide-ranging discussion on these issues, will make it clear that matters relating to animal or human health are likely to be reserved. Currently, the sort of order referred to by my right hon. Friend is made jointly by the Minister of Agriculture and me, as Secretary of State for Wales. Such an order is likely to continue, without those powers being transferred to the Welsh Assembly."—[Official Report, 8 December 1997; Vol. 302, c. 755.]
So there is a third category of responsibilities of the Secretary of State, other than those described in the White Paper, which relates to joint responsibilities of the Secretary of State and other Ministers, and which would not necessarily be transferred.
As far as I can see, amendment No. 45 does not make such a qualification. The third category of powers would be "hereby transferred", as the amendment says. That is very interesting. Is it a massive conversion by the Opposition? I notice that the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) is hunting through the Bill.

Mr. Letwin: I am following the hon. Gentleman's remarks with the greatest possible interest. I cannot understand where he is going in the light of, for example, paragraph 5 of the draft order, which makes specific reference to education Acts, in line with schedule 2, where, of course, the Secretary of State for Wales works in conjunction with the Secretary of State for Education and Employment. By contrast, the amendment specifically refers only to the Secretary of State for Wales exercising the functions. At worst, the amendment is the same, and at best, it is more limited than the transfer of powers in the draft order.

Mr. Rowlands: No, the amendment refers to all the Secretary of State's powers, including those he may exercise jointly with others. The amendment does not qualify the powers.

Mr. Jenkin: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware that we have not yet come to schedule 2. Obviously, if the House chose to amend the Bill as we propose, it would be appropriate to amend schedule 2—possibly quite substantially. It is important to establish exactly what will be transferred, and what is transferable, and to limit it so that there is what they call in constitutional jargon "a settlement" between the Welsh assembly and Parliament, and not a constantly moving feast which can be interpreted by one party or another differently and inevitably result in a dispute.

Mr. Rowlands: Amendments to schedule 2 are not before us. If the Opposition amendments were accepted, the Opposition would be handing over to the assembly every single responsibility that the Secretary of State for Wales can currently use.
The debate offers an opportunity to ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to clarify the areas of responsibility which he says he shares with other Ministers, and which may be reserved and not transferred.
My right hon. Friend made a reference that is recorded at column 755 of the Official Report for 8 December, and there was a further elaboration of that policy on 9 December, which is recorded at columns 831–833. My right hon. Friend may remember the exchanges that we had then.
In another intervention, a whole interesting area of reserved functions was mentioned, and my right hon. Friend said:
Such an order is likely to continue, without those powers being transferred to the Welsh Assembly."—[Official Report, 8 December 1997; Vol. 320, c. 755.]
He also said that there would be a statement to that effect in the draft order. I cannot find it, so will he tell us when he comes to reply—or even sooner; perhaps he would like to tell us now—what the areas are in which he, acting jointly with other Ministers, intends to reserve the powers rather than handing them over to the Welsh assembly? That is not clear from the draft transfer order.
I know that my right hon. Friend will probably reply, "Everything that I am not transferring." That might be his immediate answer, but in his comments recorded at column 755 he specifically said that he would identify the powers for us. I hope that he will seek to do so, because that would clarify the role and position of the remaining powers of the Secretary of State.
I am slightly puzzled, because one of the examples cited in those exchanges, especially on 9 December, was the power that the Secretary of State might or might not hold in respect of dealing with, say, meat hygiene and meat safety. I had given an illustration involving section 16 of the Food Safety Act 1990, and my right hon. Friend intervened to say that that was a classic example of a power that would not be transferred, but would be reserved for Ministers. It would be held by the Secretary of State and not transferred to the assembly.
If that is the case, what puzzles me is the fact that the Food Safety Act 1990 is listed in the draft of the Transfer of Functions (National Assembly for Wales) Order as being transferred to the assembly. Are we are to reserve such a power? Will my right hon. Friend look into that question? I was surprised to see the Food Safety Act—the very legislation under which the meat safety provisions and the powers over meat on the bone were, as I thought, reserved—listed in the draft order with matters to be transferred to the assembly.
Putting aside the nonsense that we have heard from the Conservatives, it would be useful if my right hon. Friend would give us more information. He has already kindly given us a long list for the transfer of functions. It would now be useful if he could identify clearly not so much the macro-economic aspects that, rightly, will be reserved for Westminster, but the important grey area for which


Ministers will have joint responsibility—health charges, for example, and human and animal welfare, which may stay on a United Kingdom basis.

Mr. Ron Davies: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene, and I apologise in advance if I cannot give him the answers to his questions in full detail before the end of the debate. I suspect that time will not allow me to do so. However, I shall give him a three-part answer now, and if what I say later fails to satisfy him, I shall write giving him as much of the information that he has requested as I can.
I refer my hon. Friend to the draft Transfer of Functions (National Assembly for Wales) Order, which I made available yesterday. It is very much a draft order. I acknowledge that, and, as my hon. Friend will see in the explanatory note, it will be subject to amendment. Perhaps additional Acts will be referred; perhaps some of the provisions will be removed. It is a draft order, and is there to be discussed.
As I said earlier, the final draft will not be made available until the autumn. There will be a further process. We have about 15 months to trawl through the Acts and ensure that we have a clear compendium of precisely what will be transferred. Then that will be subject to debate in the House.
I must tell my hon. Friend that I am currently discussing such matters with my ministerial colleagues. He will understand that there are many responsibilities that are discharged jointly, and we are now working through them. I assure him that before a final decision is taken there will be a complete and comprehensive list. In the meantime, I shall endeavour to ensure that he has all the information that he seeks.

Mr. Rowlands: I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. I hope that none of my comments appears to constitute a criticism of, or a complaint about, the nature of the draft order; I merely want to ensure that we understand what we are seeking to transfer and what will be in reserve, and I think that there is a third category.
I was rather puzzled by one point. Does my right hon. Friend, like me, consider that amendment No. 45 would convey a much wider, more sweeping power? It appears to me that the Opposition want us to hand over all the powers to the assembly. If my interpretation of the amendment is correct, Welsh nationalists ought to support it, but I have doubts.
On Second Reading, a specific illustration was given to enable us to work out the relationship between assembly powers and the Secretary of State's powers, held jointly by Ministers. The Food Safety Act 1990 suddenly made an appearance. It is possible that other order-making powers in the Act could be legitimately transferred to the assembly, but the power involved was a key power: it was on the basis of section 16 that we banned beef on the bone. When we speculated whether it would have been within the power of the assembly not to proceed with such action, we were told clearly by my right hon. Friend that that would not be the case—that this was a reserved power. Yet I find the same legislation popping up in the transfer order.
I accept that this is very much a first shot and that, as my right hon. Friend has said, there will be plenty of revisions; but we have certainly heard some rubbish from

Opposition Members during our debates. I have tried to follow their speeches closely, but I do not think that they have developed their case, and have not "worried" the legislation through to ensure that we get it right. I hope that, from now on, we can expect a much more constructive kind of worrying than we have heard during most of today's debate.

Mr. Evans: As my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) said, we want devolution to strengthen the United Kingdom. That was what was said at the time of the referendum. The Secretary of State said himself in the foreword to the White Paper "A Voice for Wales":
The Government's programme of constitutional change gives the people of Wales a new opportunity. An opportunity to have our own democratically-elected Assembly within a strong United Kingdom.
We do not want the Bill—and clause 21 in particular—to weaken the integrity of the Union, but we believe that, if the Bill is not amended, that is exactly what will happen.
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for assuring us, after issuing the draft transfer order—and it is a draft—that he will consult before the final version appears in, perhaps, 12 or 15 months' time, as is stated in the press release accompanying the draft, and as he has just told us. That is just as well, in view of what my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) said about the order. I assume that the questions that he raised will be clarified, and that amendments will be made during the consultation period.
We did not table our amendments with the aim of presenting obstacles to a process that is taking place in the House, and which will lead—all else being equal—to the establishment of a Welsh assembly. I think that the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) and the right hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) would like us to wave the Bill through without giving it the close scrutiny that it deserves.
Amendments that give further powers to the assembly are only ever seen as pro-devolution. Our amendments are aimed at improving the Bill. Anyone who tables such amendments will have examined the Bill carefully, and listened to what the people of Wales said during the referendum campaign. We are still of a mind that the people of Wales spoke clearly on 18 September, when only one in four supported the Bill.
As the Prime Minister said on the steps of 10 Downing street, we must pay careful attention to what the people said. We must also look at the Bill, and decide whether it marries up to what the Welsh people really want.
If our amendments are not made, the voice of Wales will be thwarted. They would allow us to avoid what even Labour Members know is a road to certain conflict. We had a taster yesterday, with calls from the nationalists for greater legislative power to go to the assembly, even before it has a site or the first brick is laid.
Does anyone in Westminster really believe that, when the assembly first meets, there will not be a call—perhaps on the first day, in one of the opening speeches—for it to have greater power than the Secretary of State has granted? We have tabled the amendments to ensure that there will be proper scrutiny and that power does not flow only one way. We must have a proper regard to what the people of Wales really want.

9 pm

Mr. Wigley: The hon. Gentleman says that there should be proper regard to what the people of Wales want. The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) listed four ways in which there could be a legitimisation of taking powers from the assembly. What is the official Conservative line on the way in which the people of Wales ought to give their blessing on any handing back of powers?

Mr. Evans: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, but he has not paid due regard to what the people of Wales have already said. Yesterday, he called for more powers to be given to the assembly than were ever stated in the White Paper or argued for in the referendum campaign. In the light of the closeness of the vote, had we gone down the route that he advocates we would not be having this debate, because there would have been a majority against devolution in Wales.
We must be careful about what we do. If we follow the route laid out in the amendments, we will have a device in place to ensure that there is not a one-way ratchet effect, although I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would much prefer that.

Mr. Hain: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that there should be a provision for a future Conservative Government, say, simply to reverse the intent of this primary legislation by order, rather than by separate primary legislation?

Mr. Evans: The Minister surely appreciates that there could be occasions on which the House might need to take back certain powers—as with emergency powers—even by order, because there could be conflict, especially in a proportional representation system. One cannot properly envisage the conflicts that might arise, because we do not operate under that system here; but if occasions arose on which we thought that we needed those powers, and we did not have them, there could be drastic effects for the people of Wales.
We have been accused of being Jeremiahs because we have taken account of the worst case scenario. Surely that is what we must do, to ensure for the benefit of the Welsh people that we have a suitable device available. It may not be used on a daily basis under the legislation.
We cannot know whether a future Government of whatever complexion may consider that what we have decided today is not the flavour of the day, and we cannot handcuff future Governments, but we can put those powers in place, to be used if necessary. If the amendments are not made, we will have no opportunity whatever to effect the changes that may be necessary.

Mr. Hain: What sort of conflict under proportional representation would the hon. Gentleman envisage as creating circumstances in which the order-making power would be necessary?

Mr. Evans: Some conflict might arise within the assembly so that it could not exercise its powers over the functioning of, for example, the health service. Conflicts might arise between the various political parties that may be represented in the assembly under the proposed system of proportional representation, and the assembly could be

blocked or reach a stalemate. We have only to look at New Zealand. After the election there, it took two months to sort out the composition of the Government because of the system of proportional representation. Who knows how long it might take after elections for the assembly for the wheeling and dealing to reach a conclusion? After all, proportional representation gives disproportionate power to small groups. At least under first past the post, we know what we have got after an election, although wheeling and dealing may go on beforehand.
The assembly could have severe problems deciding who would be the First Secretary. We know that the Secretary of State for Wales is clear in his mind about who will be the First Secretary after the elections, but the assembly may have other ideas. That is the sort of problem that might arise.

Mr. Hain: In the event of a bit of wheeling and dealing in the Welsh assembly, would a future Tory Government intervene by order?

Mr. Evans: The example that I have just given should be sufficient for the Minister to agree that circumstances could arise in which powers would need to be taken back by Westminster by order. The Minister should concede that point, which he is currently refusing to do.

Mr. Wigley: I have followed the hon. Gentleman's argument with considerable interest. He said that circumstances could arise in which a Conservative Government, if we have the misfortune to have one in future, might wish to use orders to intervene. He said a few moments ago that such an intervention would be in line with the wishes of the Welsh people. Would he determine the wishes of the Welsh people by holding another referendum; on the basis of opinion expressed in the assembly; or by consulting a small handful of Conservative Members in Westminster, who might form a minority of representatives from Wales in this House but would be used to give legitimacy to overruling the decision of the referendum?

Mr. Evans: The right hon. Gentleman should know all about minorities, as he represents only 9 per cent. of the people who voted in the general election. At least the Conservatives got twice that support. I can assure the House that that is not an admission that the Conservatives have been converted to proportional representation, because we will fight that tooth and nail. We all know why the right hon. Gentleman wishes to pursue that line of argument, but it deviates from the subject of our amendments and I shall not join him. However, he must concede that circumstances could arise, such as public health scares or epidemics—[Interruption.] I am describing a worst case scenario, but that could happen.
I can understand why pro-devolution Members would prefer that the route to independence allowed only one-way traffic, along the M4 from London to Cardiff—if that is where the assembly will be—without any red lights. I remember, on Second Reading, that it was said that that journey would be a magical mystery tour. Conservative Members said that it would not, because we knew exactly where we would end up and we did not wish to go there. That is why we have tabled these amendments.
The right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) and the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) have referred to clause 21 which is, some would argue, contradictory to certain provisions in clause 22. It is doubtful whether it would take primary legislation to achieve further transfers of power to Cardiff or whether that could be done through Orders in Council.
Both those options are possible. The Secretary of State may wish to give certain powers to the assembly, which would require primary legislation. However, he may have other powers that he will not immediately pass to the assembly, and he may decide at a future date that it is appropriate to give those powers to the assembly. That would be done by Orders in Council, so both systems could work side by side.
We tabled the amendments to ensure that there is two-way traffic in the future. We want to prevent the assembly blocking the possibility of Westminster taking back, by orders, powers previously transferred to the assembly. Earlier in the debate, the Secretary of State asked one of my hon. Friends how he would consult if those powers had to be taken back. It was almost an admission that the assembly could stop Westminster taking back, by orders, powers transferred by orders. I hope that the Secretary of State will clarify that when he replies to the debate.
Will there be only one-way traffic in terms of powers transferred via Orders in Council? Will we always have to use primary legislation to take back powers transferred to the assembly, either in Committee or through votes on the Floor of the House without debate?

Mr. Rowlands: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman's flow. Amendment No. 45 asks that all the Secretary of State's responsibilities and functions be transferred in accordance with schedule 2. As the Opposition have not tabled a single amendment to schedule 2, may we assume that they now wish to transfer all the functions contained in schedule 2 from the Secretary of State to the assembly?

Mr. Evans: As my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) said earlier, we have not yet come to schedule 2 and the Bill has not completed its passage through both Houses of Parliament. If our amendments are passed today, we shall have an opportunity to ensure that we look carefully at the powers contained in schedule 2. It is important to place a limit on the powers that are being transferred in the Bill so there is not a drip, drip, drip, a constant ratchet and a one-way passage of powers from this House to the Welsh assembly.
We tabled the amendments in a constructive manner and we ask the Secretary of State to look carefully at our reasons for doing so. I hope that he will clarify some of the questions that have been raised on both sides of the House. We do not aim to wreck the Bill, but the only way to improve it is to ensure that there is two-way traffic.

Mr. Ron Davies: One thing that the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) certainly does not want is a stable arrangement between the unitary Government and the Cardiff assembly. He seeks to insert into the Bill a mechanism that will always give a whip hand to the unitary Government to take back powers from the Welsh assembly by means of a one-and-a-half hour debate on an

order, without the agreement of the Welsh assembly. That is behind the amendment. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I understand his motives very well. This is a last-ditch attempt to frustrate devolution and I shall reject the amendment.

Mr. Ancram: rose—

Mr. Davies: If the right hon. Gentleman will restrain himself for a moment, I shall deal with some of his comments in due course. Time is pressing and I have many comments to make. I want to reply to all the points that have been made in the debate. However, I give way.

Mr. Ancram: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman and I shall be as brief as possible. I am sure he would admit that I gave way to him on every occasion he asked me to do so. He says that we are trying to ensure that the return of any powers is achieved by a procedure that would allow for no amendments and only a one-and-a-half-hour debate. Does he agree that, under the Bill as it stands, that is the procedure for the transfer of powers from himself and from the House to the Welsh assembly? How does he justify it in that context?

Mr. Davies: That procedure is used by this sovereign Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman proposes to take powers away from the assembly, without consulting and without the consent of the assembly. That is the point between us and I shall return to it later.
I wish to express my gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands), who is taking a close interest in our proceedings. I am mightily relieved when I hear him speak in unreserved support of the Government's position—it makes a pleasant and refreshing change and is therefore welcome. He will be pleased to learn that my understanding of the intent and effect of the Opposition amendments is exactly the same as his.
My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) asked a specific question about provisions relating to the Public Accounts Committee. The Bill makes substantial provision for the PAC to have a role in monitoring the finances of the assembly. I refer my hon. Friend to clause 101 and notify him of the fact that that clause provides for the Comptroller and Auditor General to carry out an examination of the assembly's finances and, if appropriate, to report back to the PAC. His point about taxes being raised by Parliament, and Parliament having the opportunity to scrutinise expenditure, is perfectly correct and we have reflected that in the legislation.
At the start of the debate, my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) caused a great deal of excitement among Opposition Members when he asked a question about the respective purposes of clauses 21 and 22. It might be helpful if I told the Committee that clauses 21 and 22 provide the process whereby powers will be handed to the assembly and that that process can take one of two forms. It can take the form in clause 21, whereby an Act of Parliament establishes particular powers which are given to the assembly and whereby the powers are specified in the Act of Parliament. That is a free-standing provision. Clause 22 provides a different mechanism,


whereby other powers can be transferred to the assembly by means of an order. Those powers will be specified either in the transfer order—a draft of which is available to hon. Members—or in any future order, which will specify the nature of those powers. Clauses 21 and 22 provide the process, and the description of the powers to be transferred to the assembly will be found either on the face of the primary legislation, or in the transfer order under clause 22. I hope that that answers my right hon. Friend's question.

Mr. Denzil Davies: I think that it does, and I am grateful. May I give an example which, although it relates to a later amendment, we may be able to clear up now? Let us assume, as is the case, that the Secretary of State for Home Affairs has functions and powers relating to prisons that can be described as "relating to Wales", in that he has those functions in respect of Wales. If that is the case, is my right hon. Friend saying that the functions and powers of the Secretary of State for Home Affairs in relation to prisons in respect of Wales can be transferred to the Welsh assembly by order?

Mr. Ron Davies: Yes, my right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. That is the purpose of clause 22(1)(a).

Mr. Ancram: rose—

Mr. Davies: I was about to come to the right hon. Gentleman's points, but I shall give way. He made a lengthy speech, he has had his colleague, the hon. Member for Ribble Valley make a second speech from the Opposition Front Bench and I understand that his other colleague, the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin), wants to make a further speech from the Opposition Front Bench. There is limited time available and I want to reply to all the many questions that have been asked. I hope that if I give way to the right hon. Gentleman, as I shall, I shall not be berated if there is insufficient time left for me to answer all the questions asked.

Mr. Ancram: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, but he himself has said that this is a matter of some concern and dispute. It is a matter of interpretation. I want to be clear on the procedure. Just now the right hon. Gentleman referred to two powers, one in clause 21 and one in clause 22. Is it not the case that the power under clause 22 stems from the power given under clause 21? Clause 21 refers to functions that are transferred
by virtue of this Act".
The order power is given
by virtue of this Act
and, therefore, without clause 21, that order power would not exist. Clause 21 also stipulates that there can be other Acts that transfer power, so there are two forms of Act under clause 21 which can transfer power, but the powers under clause 22, and those relating to further orders under clause 23, stem ultimately from the power given under clause 21 by the words
by virtue of this Act".

Mr. Davies: That is not what I said. I made it clear that clause 21 is a free-standing provision which allows

powers to be transferred to the assembly by definition at some point in the future. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman has asked a question, but now he is badgering me from a sedentary position. I am perfectly happy to give him an answer. If he thinks that this is the most important matter before us—we have been debating it for the best part of three hours—I shall concentrate on it. The answer is quite clear. Clause 21 specifies that the assembly may acquire powers by means of primary legislation. Those powers will be specified in that legislation. Clause 22 provides for a different mechanism—

Mr. Ancram: That is not clear.

Mr. Davies: The position is quite clear and I have repeated it time after time to the right hon. Gentleman. If he wants to have a further discussion later, I shall make him an offer. I will meet him downstairs in the Strangers Bar at about five past 10 o'clock. I will buy him a pint and spend at least 10 minutes taking him through the details. I am afraid that that is the best offer I can make this evening, but some of my hon. Friends are muttering that it is too generous.

Mr. Denzil Davies: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Ron Davies: Well—

Mr. Denzil Davies: It is only 9.20 pm.

Mr. Ron Davies: I will give way to my right hon. Friend, but I also want to deal with the points raised by the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) and by the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin). I am sure, however, that my right hon. Friend has an even more interesting question for me.

Mr. Denzil Davies: It is the same question. Let me try to get it absolutely right. What my right hon. Friend is saying is different from what is said in the Bill. He is saying that the assembly shall have the functions that are, in effect, transferred to it either by an Act of Parliament or by an order. That is not what the two clauses state. Clause 21 says that the assembly
shall have the functions which are … transferred … by virtue of this Act".
It does not say that it shall have functions that are transferred one way or another, but that is what my right hon. Friend is saying. If he tells me that the draftsman has obviously thought otherwise, I will accept that for now, but perhaps he could at least assure me that that draftsman will have another look at the clauses.

Mr. Ron Davies: I am satisfied that the clauses are perfectly clear, but let me try to explain them yet again to my right hon. Friend. Clause 21—I hope you will not rule me out of order for commenting on it, Sir Alan, because, technically, clause 21 already stands part of the Bill—refers to powers that are being transferred to the assembly by the legislation. That is what clause 21(1)(a) means. Clause 21(1)(b) refers to the fact that Acts in the future can also transfer powers to the assembly. Those powers will be specified in that future legislation.
Clause 22 deals with an entirely different mechanism, but it has caused much excitement on the Conservative Benches. It contains the provision that allows for powers that are currently or in the future vested in Ministers of the Crown to be transferred by order to the assembly. I hope that we have now got the matter absolutely right.

Mr. Denzil Davies: Yes, I heard that.

Mr. Ron Davies: Good.

Mr. Letwin: rose—

Mr. Davies: I will not give way.

Mr. Letwin: We are in Committee.

Mr. Davies: I have spoken for just 10 minutes, but all I have done is take interventions. I will not fall for the hon. Gentleman's intervention. I will try to be as courteous and helpful as possible when I deal with the points raised by the hon. Gentleman, but many questions have been asked and I do not want to be berated for failing to answer them. The hon. Gentleman had a long time to make his own case. There are answers to the questions that he raised and I want to get those answers on the record. If time allows, I shall certainly give way to him.
The right hon. Member for Devizes spoke about three tests of devolution—the test of flexibility, whether devolution would secure the Union and whether devolution would ensure stability in the arrangements between the unitary Government and the devolved government. I believe that the Bill meets perfectly all three tests. I recommend the Committee to reject the amendments because I believe that they fundamentally weaken the proposals that are set out in the Bill.
We had an interesting exchange earlier, with the right hon. Member for Devizes berating me and hoping, perhaps, that I would throw up my hands in horror and confess. I accept, however, that what we are proposing represents a substantial change. I acknowledge that it will change the relationship and the way in which the British Government have operated for a long time. The unitary nature of the British Government will be changed because we are devolving powers to Cardiff.

Mr. Wigley: Or Swansea.

Mr. Davies: Yes, or Swansea. I referred to Cardiff metaphorically. The same would apply to Abercynon or Llandudno. I apologise to everyone in Wales.
We are talking about the transfer of powers to Cardiff. There is a question before us, and that is that the intention behind the amendments is to give authority to the British Government to take powers at any time in future by means of a one-and-half-hour debate, without recourse to the people of Wales, Welsh representatives or the assembly. Powers would be taken back on the basis of a short debate by order without the consent of the assembly. That is the intention behind the amendments. I am opposed to that. We shall resist the amendments because we realise that there is a new settlement.
We have heard a great deal about the supremacy of Parliament. Let me again assure the Committee that we are not for one moment questioning the sovereignty

of this Parliament. I acknowledged yesterday, as did the Committee when it defeated one of the amendments tabled by the right hon. Member for Devizes, that it will always be open to the House of Commons to abolish the assembly, if it so wishes, or to remove powers from it. If that is to be done, it should be done by means of primary legislation, not on the basis of a oneand-a-half-hour debate and a Division on the Floor of the House at 11.30 pm. That is the difference between us.
The right hon. Member for Devizes was talking earlier with a sense of outrage about a stand-off that would exist between Parliament and the assembly, which would be devastating to the Union. He argued that it would create tension and frustration if the British Parliament were not able to take powers back from the assembly.

Mr. Ancram: It is a two-way process.

Mr. Davies: Of course it is.
How does the right hon. Gentleman think that a provision of the sort that he is suggesting, whereby powers could be taken unilaterally on the basis of a one-and-a-half-hour debate, would add to the stability of the assembly? How does he think that that would resolve conflict and build confidence, trust and a mutually respectful relationship between the assembly and Parliament? That would not be the outcome. That is the essential flaw in the right hon. Gentleman's argument.
I move on to the question of a one-way street. No one is suggesting that powers should not be transferred from the assembly. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney raised some interesting questions about the nature of some of the powers that may be devolved to the assembly. It may be in the light of circumstances that I cannot foresee and do not want to speculate on at the moment that at some stage in future, there will be perfectly good reasons for some powers being repatriated or handed back to the unitary Government.
If there are good arguments, they will be accepted by the assembly. It may be for the better government of Wales and the better discharge of functions that the assembly will want to transfer powers back to the unitary Government. If that is the position, that is fine. That will be done by agreement. It will be done with respect being given to the assembly through the Bill and to the sovereignty of Parliament, always acknowledging that Parliament can exercise its sovereignty. However, the right hon. Member for Devizes is seeking to introduce a process whereby Parliament alone can take back powers without reference to the assembly, and I propose to resist that.

Mr. Ancram: The right hon. Gentleman is making another speech of the sort that I have heard him make before, where he talks about the sovereignty of Parliament and its power to take things back if it wants to, and where he says that this is not a one-way street because Parliament can exercise that sovereignty. If he is so certain in his assertions, why will he not accept the amendments?

Mr. Davies: I resist the right hon. Gentleman's amendments because they would allow powers to be taken away from the assembly, without its having the opportunity to express a view. I stand on that principle. This may be a fundamental difference between us. Let us acknowledge it. The right hon. Gentleman and the Conservative Opposition want to emasculate the assembly at the outset. They want unilateral powers—whenever it suits their convenience, whenever there is a policy decision and whenever the people of Wales venture to take a decision to suit their circumstances—to deny the assembly the opportunity to make such a judgment. That is the difference between us.

Mr. Ancram: rose—

Mr. Davies: The right hon. Gentleman has got to buy me a pint now.

Mr. Ancram: Has a Scot ever offered a Welshman a pint?
I will make the right hon. Gentleman an offer. He is worried about the assembly not being consulted. That relates to amendment No. 47. If it were withdrawn, his objection would have to be withdrawn. Will he therefore accept the other two amendments?

Mr. Davies: I accept the right hon. Gentleman's offer in this sense. If he wishes to withdraw the amendment, to reflect on the debate and to accept the objections of hon. Members on both sides of the Committee, and if he understands that it is not acceptable either to the Government or to Welsh Members to weaken the Bill fundamentally at the outset, I will have further discussions, perhaps over the second of our drinks downstairs, to find out how to accommodate his concerns. I hope that he will have the good grace even at this late hour to realise that it is not in the interests of the Committee or of his party to pursue the amendment.
The hon. Member for West Dorset made an entertaining speech. It is the first time that I have had the pleasure of listening to him and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I congratulate him on the force and clarity of his arguments and on the entertainment value of his speech. I make those comments genuinely. However, he did have a little mischief in mind. He did not strictly stick to the indisputable facts, which are clear.
The hon. Gentleman made great play of the transfer order and said that it could not be taken seriously because it contained deficiencies. Of course it does. In the statement that I published with the transfer order, I said:
The Transfer of Functions (National Assembly for Wales) Order is the first stage in a trawl through the more than three hundred Acts of Parliament that are relevant.
The Transfer Order is an important document. Much work remains to be done on the detail over the next twelve months and there will be wide-ranging consultation before the final draft of the order is drawn up.
The Transfer Order will inform the debates and committee stages of the Government of Wales Bill as it progresses through Parliament, and I judged it important to get a working draft into the public domain as soon as possible.
That is a fair statement of the Government's position. I wanted to ensure that there was a first trawl and that right hon. and hon. Members who had raised fundamental

questions about the nature of the transfer order had the opportunity to see the draft order, get a feel of it and understand the process that we were undertaking.
I acknowledge that I do not have any difficulty in producing a draft and that it has imperfections. I have produced the draft order because it is a complicated and detailed process and we want the order to be examined in public debate.
It may be a new feature of Government that we have a public and open debate and an admission that not everything can be got right initially, particularly when we deal with the huge transfer of power to a new democratic institution. Given the experience that we have had in politics—given certainly my experience in the House in the past 15 years—a little humility and recognition by Ministers that they do not always get everything right on the first occasion would be welcome.
The hon. Member for West Dorset then spoke about the assembly and suggested that a wide range of powers would be vested in it to allow it to repeal or amend primary legislation.

Mr. Jenkin: indicated dissent.

Mr. Davies: That was certainly the message that the hon. Member for West Dorset gave in his speech, but what he said is not the case. I acknowledge that some powers transferred to the assembly will allow it to amend primary legislation, but the hon. Gentleman suggested that there would be a range of powers that would allow the assembly to repeal existing primary legislation. He used that word several times in his speech and I am sure that a look at Hansard tomorrow will clarify that.
I have only one power of which I am aware. There may be others, but I am advised that I have one power only—the power given to Ministers by the previous Government when they passed the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994. They gave Ministers substantial powers to repeal existing primary legislation. I happen to be the beneficiary of those powers at the moment. In theory, I could transfer to the assembly the power to repeal primary legislation, but I know that the hon. Member for West Dorset has studied the transfer order closely, and he must realise that, as that document shows, it is not the Government's policy to transfer to the assembly those powers to repeal primary legislation.

Mr. Letwin: Will the right hon. Gentleman clarify two points? First, does he accept that he has transferred in the draft transfer order—if we are to take the document seriously, notwithstanding the imperfections that he has admitted—the Local Government Finance Act 1988 provisions to which I referred and which specifically also give him the power to repeal and amend?

Mr. Davies: Yes, that is the case, but the hon. Gentleman made great play of section 157—[Interruption.] I am sorry; section 147. As I understand it, those powers are exhausted because they were the specific powers that were necessary to deal with the repeal of the poll tax. That is the advice that I have been given and I am happy to enter into correspondence with the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Letwin: rose—

Mr. Davies: I am afraid that there will be a queue of people at the Bar downstairs if I have to buy a pint for


everyone who intervenes on me tonight, and if I continue to give way, I shall not finish my speech. I shall try to accommodate any genuine anxieties that the hon. Gentleman has.
As is clear, amendment No. 45 limits the ministerial functions that are transferred to the assembly to the fields specified in schedule 2, in so far as they are exercisable by the Secretary of State for Wales. The purpose of the amendment is to make the point that only an Act of Parliament should confer functions on the assembly—in other words, the fast track will not be allowed.
Amazingly, amendment No. 46 converts the power that is currently in clause 22 to transfer functions from Ministers to the assembly to a power to transfer functions from the assembly to Ministers—

Mr. Rhodri Morgan: Anti-devolution.

Mr. Davies: It is anti-devolution. It is a reversal of the process that the Bill seeks to achieve.
Amendment No. 47 removes the requirement for the assembly to agree to an order under clause 22 which amends or revokes a previous order. Under amendments Nos. 46 and 47, functions could be removed from the assembly by secondary legislation without the assembly having a direct say in the matter. The right hon. Member for Devizes says that is right; I know that it is not right, and that is the difference between us.
The amendment means that the transfer of functions will lack precision. If its purpose is to ensure that the Committee and the wider world know what the functions of the assembly are to be, it will fail. The transfer order—the working draft of which I have published—will list precisely which functions, under which Acts, are transferred to the assembly. The Government's approach gives clarity. The Opposition amendment is a recipe for confusion and disputes, for years to come, about the powers that are currently vested in the Secretary of State.
The amendment would transfer all my functions in the field specified in schedule 2, but that is not what the Government propose. The White Paper made it plain that almost all my functions would be transferred to the assembly, but that some functions—my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney explored that earlier—would not be so transferred.
An example that might interest the right hon. Member for Devizes is my function in advising Her Majesty the Queen on some appointments. That is why the draft transfer order says that we are considering not transferring to the assembly functions to do with the appointment of the chief inspector of schools in Wales under the School Inspections Act 1996, and of the Local Government Commissioner for Wales under the Local Government Act 1988.
It is also true that the Government are considering transferring to the assembly some functions that are not exercised by me. That was the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli explored with me earlier. A further example concerns joint powers. At present, the legislation requires that I act jointly with my colleagues in other Departments. The general policy that the Government are adopting is to eliminate the requirement for joint action whenever that is practical, so that the assembly would be free to exercise such powers on its own for Wales. When we decide that that is the

right course to follow, the transfer order will need to transfer to the assembly not just my functions, but those of my ministerial colleagues with respect to Wales.

Mr. Cynog Dafis: Why does the Secretary of State want to retain the power to choose the chief inspector of schools for Wales? Why on earth should not the assembly have that power?

Mr. Davies: Because as I said, that matter is the responsibility of Her Majesty the Queen, and it would require changes of another kind. I know that the hon. Gentleman shares my view of these matters—[Laughter.]—at least I hope he does.
The Committee should also note that not all the functions that I exercise fall neatly into one or other of the categories in schedule 2. By way of example, I offer certain functions that I exercise with respect to civil defence and to local authorities, under the Civil Defence Act 1948. There is no reason why the assembly should not inherit such powers, but the amendment might have the effect of preventing that.
The Government are unwilling to rule out the possibility of future transfers of ministerial functions to the assembly. At the moment, the Government have no plans to make further orders. I have repeatedly stressed that devolution is a process, not an event. Clause 22 affords Parliament ample opportunity for debate, although the affirmative resolution procedure would apply, if any future Government proposed the transfer to the assembly of functions other than those currently vested in my office. It is true that there will be a debate of one and a half hours, but the power will still rest with the House to approve—

Mr. Ancram: indicated dissent.

Mr. Davies: Thousands of pieces of secondary legislation go through Parliament every year without debate or amendment. The right hon. Gentleman should stop harping on about how the world will come crashing down if the powers exercised by Ministers in respect of Wales are handed over to a democratic authority in Wales following proper debate and a vote in the House of Commons. That does not undermine our democracy; it certainly changes our constitutional arrangements. But the people of this country voted in large measure on 1 May for constitutional change.

Mr. Rowlands: It appears that there will be two options—Acts of Parliament and orders. The notes on clauses say that some modest functions in future may be appropriately devolved by order. That implies that some modesty will attend the order-making power, and that substantial transfers of power will be effected by Acts of Parliament. The transfer of prisons from the Home Office involves a fairly substantial power. Would that be done by order or by primary legislation?

Mr. Davies: I cannot answer that question; we are not proposing it anyway. Some future Government might decide that it was necessary to transfer substantial additional powers to the Welsh assembly—

Mr. Denzil Davies: Like taxation?

Mr. Ron Davies: That is not what I am proposing, but a future Government might consider it. If so, I am sure


that the Government of the day and Parliament would say, "Hang on, you cannot do that by order: it is a substantial shift."

Mr. Denzil Davies: It is provided for in the Bill.

Mr. Ron Davies: Of course it is, but legislation must be acted on in the light of political common sense. Meanwhile, the Bill contains a mechanism for a transfer order dealing with law-and-order issues and other non-controversial matters that a Government of the future might believe could be transferred by order after a one-and-a-half hour debate. Other, larger areas of responsibility may need primary legislation, however.
We are trying to be reasonable and flexible. The Government want a stable constitutional settlement. Amendment No. 46, with its sister amendment No. 47, provides for instability. Functions could be removed from the assembly almost at the behest of the Government of the day. That is why clause 22(4)(b) provides some level of security for the assembly—a lock, as it were. Amendment No. 47 would remove that lock. That is why I was not prepared to accept the earlier suggestion by the right hon. Member for Devizes.
The hon. Member for North Essex seemed to agree with the Government's approach to authority and stability when he told the Committee yesterday,
We do not want the relationship between Westminster and the … assembly … to be one in which Westminster is constantly interfering and reasserting its supremacy."—[Official Report, 20 January 1998; Vol. 304, c. 875.]
How can he reconcile that statement with the Opposition's present argument that, on the basis of a one-and-a-half hour debate and a vote in the House of Commons, any function can be stripped away from the Welsh assembly? The hon. Gentleman is being entirely inconsistent in this matter.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman, however, that if there were to be any future reduction in the assembly's powers, it should be an infrequent occurrence. The Opposition amendments leave the door open to the Westminster Government to reduce the assembly's functions by means of secondary legislation at any time.
The Leader of the Opposition has gone on record as saying that a Government led by him would not seek to abolish the assembly without the consent of the Welsh people. The amendments allow for the possibility of virtual abolition, but by the back door, making the removal of the assembly's functions by secondary legislation much easier. I ask the right hon. Member for Devizes to reflect on whether that is consistent with his party's policy, as set out by his right hon. Friend.
If the Opposition press amendments Nos. 45, 46 and 47 to a Division, I urge the Committee to join me in voting against them.

Mr. Jenkin: I did indeed utter the words that the Secretary of State so kindly quoted. It must have been a good speech for him to take the trouble to quote me at such length. I am delighted that he did so.
The amendments have exposed what we most feared about the Bill—that we do not have a proposed settlement between the Westminster Parliament and the Welsh assembly. We have a constantly movable feast, which will provoke the misunderstandings and discords—

Mr. Nick Ainger: That is what the Conservatives want.

Mr. Jenkin: It is not what we want. We want a clean and clear settlement. That is what amendment No. 45 proposes. It proposes that we transfer defined and definable powers to the assembly, as set out in schedule 2. It may take amendments to schedule 2 to shape that into what the Government intend to devolve.
As the Bill stands, we will never know from week to week what powers the Secretary of State wants to devolve. He keeps telling us that devolution is a process, not an event. The Bill makes that clear. However, it is like trying to reassure Charles I, when Parliament was seeking powers to control taxes, that the matter of parliamentary supremacy was a process, not an event. Little did he know—or perhaps he did know—that it would conclude with the chopping off of his head. We are dealing in the Bill with a rolling programme.
We shall press amendment No. 45 to a Division because, through the draft transfer order, which I am grateful to the Secretary of State for providing, the Bill provides for an initial major transfer of powers, but it goes on to explain that those powers are not exhaustive, and furthermore that the powers can be transferred only one way at the behest of Parliament, and cannot be transferred the other way without the consent of the assembly. We have the prospect of unlimited transfers.
I do not know whether the Secretary of State realised what he was saying in his winding-up speech. He implied that tax-raising powers could be transferred by order. [Interruption.] Yes, that is what he said. If he reads Hansard, he will realise that that is what he implied.

Mr. Ron Davies: The hon. Gentleman cannot get away with that. I did not imply that for one moment. In reply to a question raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) about whether tax-raising powers could be transferred by order, I said that that was exactly the type of big issue which any future Government would have to consider dealing with by means of primary legislation.

Mr. Jenkin: The fact is that the Bill contains the authority to transfer those powers by order. That is what we find so unsatisfactory. We want a settled arrangement between the Welsh assembly and the Westminster Parliament, and the Bill simply does not provide that.
There is another matter which we have settled by provoking debate through the amendments. The great advertisement for the Welsh assembly—that it could have stopped the poll tax—is a fraudulent claim. The Secretary of State has been going around saying that which is not, because the order-making powers in the Local Government Finance Act 1988, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) so ably demonstrated, are extremely limited and relate to very limited issues. Hypothetically, even if such powers had been transferred to a Welsh assembly, they would not have stopped Parliament imposing the poll tax.
We are left with an important question: are we setting up a contract between the Welsh assembly elected by the Welsh people and the Westminster Parliament, a contract which both sides will understand and comprehend, so that, when we come to the disputes that are inevitable between two layers of government, at least the parameters will be understood, and as the disputes are resolved the terms of that resolution will be accepted? Or are we creating a situation where the expectations being raised for the Welsh assembly are far beyond what the Westminster Parliament can practically deliver, aided and abetted by the political opportunism of the Secretary of State and his party, resulting inevitably in disappointment, disillusion and further disputes and playing into the hands of the nationalists, who are, of course, the smiling figures on the sidelines waiting to pick up the pieces of the Secretary of State's scheme?
The Secretary of State's main objection to our amendments was with amendment No. 47. It is interesting that the drafting of clause 21 is curiously elliptical and led the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) to a different understanding of what it means. If the interpretation that the Secretary of State places on clause 21 as it relates to clause 22 is accepted, a certain amount of wording in clause 21(b) is superfluous. Clause 21 states:
The Assembly shall have the functions which are—
(a) transferred to, or made exercisable by, the Assembly by virtue of this Act",
when in fact the Bill transfers no such powers. That is a shortcoming in the proposed legislation, possibly created in the rush to get the Bill drafted.

Mr. Ron Davies: In which case, why did the hon. Gentleman not table an amendment to improve the Bill?

Mr. Jenkin: We have. We wish to transfer powers by virtue of the Bill. We are seeking to fulfil what the clause appears to promise but in fact does not, because no powers are transferred by virtue of the Act, except by the order-making power that the Secretary of State will use. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) said, if we accept a fresh structure for the Bill, we do not need amendment No. 47.
If this hotch-potch of powers is to be transferred by order, and there is the rather absurd notion that somehow the Welsh assembly in the midst of a dispute about its powers would willingly give up powers that had already been granted to it by order, we need a simple mechanism to reflect that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If it is right to transfer powers to the assembly by order, it is right to transfer powers back by order.
None of the new powers that would be transferred by order has necessarily been agreed by the assembly or by referendum. Why, then, should not those powers be transferred back without the agreement of a referendum or the assembly? As the Secretary of State rightly keeps reminding the Committee, the House of Commons remains sovereign. Allowing powers that can be given to be taken away in the same fashion merely creates symmetry in the Bill.
I suspect that the reason for the Secretary of State's deep love for the clause is the same as the motivation for the Bill. It is about appeasing nationalism. Just as he has framed a devolution policy to try to capture nationalist

votes by running before the wind, the clause is necessary to stop the nationalists being driven up the wall with frustration.

Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: If the hon. Gentleman is given the undertaking that there will be no frustration among Plaid Cymru Members, will he withdraw the amendment?

Mr. Jenkin: We will withdraw the amendment if we can be certain that the Bill will confer a defined and clear structure of devolved power on the Welsh assembly. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The Government's opposition to amendment No. 45 sets up a structure which allows for a state of flux to exist between Westminster and the assembly. We need a power to balance the order-making power to transfer powers to the assembly. We therefore stand by the amendments and we shall vote on amendment No. 45.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 147, Noes 370.

Division No.137]
[9.57 pm


AYES


Ainsworth, Peter (E Surrey)
Gale, Roger


Amess, David
Garnier, Edward


Ancram, Rt Hon Michael
Gibb, Nick


Arbuthnot, James
Gill, Christopher


Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)
Gillan, Mrs Cheryl


Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)
Goodlad, Rt Hon Sir Alastair


Baldry, Tony
Gorman, Mrs Teresa


Bercow, John
Green, Damian


Beresford, Sir Paul
Greenway, John


Blunt, Crispin
Grieve, Dominic


Body, Sir Richard
Hague, Rt Hon William


Boswell, Tim
Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie


Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)
Hammond, Philip


Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia
Hawkins, Nick


Brady, Graham
Hayes, John


Brazier, Julian
Heathcoat-Amory, Rt Hon David


Brooke, Rt Hon Peter
Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael


Browning, Mrs Angela
Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas


Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)
Horam, John


Burns, Simon
Howard, Rt Hon Michael


Butterfill, John
Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)


Cash, William
Hunter, Andrew


Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)
Jack, Rt Hon Michael



Jackson, Robert (Wantage)


Chope, Christopher
Jenkin, Bernard


Clappison, James
Johnson Smith, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey


Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Kensington)



Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Key, Robert



King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)


Collins, Tim
Kirkbride, Miss Julie


Colvin, Michael
Laing, Mrs Eleanor


Cran, James
Lait, Mrs Jacqui


Curry, Rt Hon David
Lansley, Andrew


Davies, Quentin (Grantham)
Leigh, Edward


Davis, Rt Hon David (Haltemprice)
Letwin, Oliver


Day, Stephen
Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)


Duncan, Alan
Lidington, David


Duncan Smith, Iain
Lilley, Rt Hon Peter


Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter
Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)


Evans, Nigel
Loughton, Tim


Faber, David
Luff, Peter


Fabricant, Michael
Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas


Fallon, Michael
MacGregor, Rt Hon John


Flight, Howard
McIntosh, Miss Anne


Forth, Rt Hon Eric
MacKay, Andrew


Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman
Maclean, Rt Hon David


Fox, Dr Liam
McLoughlin, Patrick


Fraser, Christopher
Madel, Sir David






Major, Rt Hon John
Spring, Richard


Malins, Humfrey
Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John


Maples, John
Steen, Anthony


Mates, Michael
Streeter, Gary


Maude, Rt Hon Francis
Swayne, Desmond


May, Mrs Theresa
Syms, Robert


Moss, Malcolm
Tapsell, Sir Peter


Nicholls, Patrick
Taylor, Ian (Esher & Walton)


Norman, Archie
Taylor, John M (Solihull)


Ottaway, Richard
Taylor, Sir Teddy


Page, Richard
Townend, John


Paice, James
Tredinnick, David


Paterson, Owen
Trend, Michael


Pickles, Eric
Tyrie, Andrew


Prior, David
Walter, Robert


Randall, John
Wardle, Charles


Redwood, Rt Hon John
Whittngdale, John



Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann


Robathan, Andrew
Wilkinson, John


Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)
Willetts David


Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)
Wilshire David


Ruffley, David
Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)


St Aubyn, Nick
Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)


Sayeed, Jonathan
Woodward, Shaun


Shephard, Rt Hon Mrs Gillian
Yeo, Tim


Shepherd, Richard
Young, Rt Hon Sir George


Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)



Soames, Nicholas
Tellers for the Ayes:


Spelman, Mrs Caroline
Mr. Oliver Heald and


Spicer, Sir Michael
Mr. Nigel Waterson.




NOES


Abbott, Ms Diane
Caborn, Richard


Ainger, Nick
Campbell, Alan (Tynemouth)


Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)
Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)


Alexander, Douglas
Campbell, Menzies (NE Fife)


Allan, Richard
Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)


Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)
Campbell-Savours, Dale


Armstrong, Ms Hilary
Canavan, Dennis


Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy
Caplin, Ivor


Ashton, Joe
Casale, Roger


Atherton, Ms Candy
Chapman, Ben (Wirral S)


Atkins, Charlotte
Chaytor, David


Ballard, Mrs Jackie
Chidgey, David


Banks, Tony
Chisholm, Malcolm


Barnes, Harry
Church, Ms Judith


Barron, Kevin
Clapham, Michael


Battle, John
Clark, Rt Hon Dr David (S Shields)


Bayley, Hugh
Clark, Dr Lynda (Edinburgh Pentlands)


Beard, Nigel



Begg, Miss Anne
Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)


Beith, Rt Hon A J
Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)


Bell, Martin (Tatton)
Clwyd, Ann


Benn, Rt Hon Tony
Coaker, Vernon


Bennett, Andrew F
Coffey, Ms Ann


Bermingham, Gerald
Coleman, Iain


Berry, Roger
Colman, Tony


Best, Harold
Cook, Frank (Stockton N)


Betts, Clive
Cooper, Yvette


Blackman, Liz
Corston, Ms Jean


Blears, Ms Hazel
Cousins, Jim


Borrow, David
Cranston, Ross


Bradley, Peter (The Wrekin)
Crausby, David


Bradshaw, Ben
Cryer, Mrs Ann (Keighley)


Brand, Dr Peter
Cummings, John


Breed, Colin
Cunliffe, Lawrence


Brinton, Mrs Helen
Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)


Brown, Rt Hon Nick (Newcastle E)
Dafis, Cynog


Brown, Russell (Dumfries)
Dalyell, Tam


Browne, Desmond
Davey, Edward (Kingston)


Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)
Davey, Valerie (Bristol W)


Buck, Ms Karen
Davidson, Ian


Burden, Richard
Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)


Burgon, Colin
Davies, Rt Hon Ron (Caerphilly)


Burstow, Paul
Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H)


Butler, Mrs Christine
Dawson, Hilton





Dean, Mrs Janet
Hurst, Alan


Denham, John
Hutton, John


Dewar, Rt Hon Donald
Iddon, Dr Brian


Dismore, Andrew
Jackson, Ms Glenda (Hampstead)


Dobbin, Jim
Jamieson, David


Dobson, Rt Hon Frank
Jenkins, Brian


Donohoe, Brian H
Johnson, Alan (Hull W & Hessle)


Doran, Frank
Johnson, Miss Melanie (Welwyn Hatfield)


Drew, David



Eagle, Angela (Wallasey)
Jones, Mrs Fiona (Newark)


Eagle, Maria (L'pool Garston)
Jones, Helen (Warrington N)


Edwards, Huw
Jones, leuan Wyn (Ynys Môn)


Efford, Clive
Jones, Ms Jenny (Wolverh'ton SW)


Ellman, Mrs Louise



Ennis, Jeff
Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)


Etherington, Bill
Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)


Feam, Ronnie
Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S)


Field, Rt Hon Frank
Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)


Fitzpatrick, Jim
Jowell, Ms Tessa


Fitzsimons, Lorna
Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald


Flint, Caroline
Keeble, Ms Sally


Flynn, Paul
Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)


Follett, Barbara
Keen, Ann (Brentford & Isleworth)


Foster, Rt Hon Derek
Keetch, Paul


Foster, Don (Bath)
Kelly, Ms Ruth


Foster, Michael Jabez (Hastings)
Kemp, Fraser


Foster, Michael J (Worcester)
Kennedy, Jane (Wavertree)


Fyfe, Maria
Khabra, Piara S


Galloway, George
Kidney, David


Gapes, Mike
King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)


Gardiner, Barry
King, Ms Oona (Bethnal Green)


George, Andrew (St Ives)
Kirkwood, Archy


George, Bruce (Walsall S)
Kumar, Dr Ashok


Gibson, Dr Ian
Ladyman, Dr Stephen


Gilroy, Mrs Linda
Lawrence, Ms Jackie


Godman, Norman A
Laxton, Bob


Godsiff, Roger
Leslie, Christopher


Goggins, Paul
Levitt, Tom


Golding, Mrs Llin
Lewis, Ivan (Bury S)


Gordon, Mrs Eileen
Lewis, Terry (Worsley)


Gorrie, Donald
Linton, Martin


Grant, Bernie
Livingstone, Ken


Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)
Livsey, Richard


Grocott, Bruce
Llwyd, Elfyn


Grogan, John
Lock, David


Hain, Peter
Love, Andrew


Hall, Mike (Weaver Vale)
McAllion, John


Hall, Patrick (Bedford)
McAvoy, Thomas


Hamilton, Fabian (Leeds NE)
McCafferty, Ms Chris


Hanson, David
McCartney, Ian (Makerfield)


Harman, Rt Hon Ms Harriet
McDonagh, Siobhain


Harris, Dr Evan
McDonnell, John


Harvey, Nick
McFall, John


Heal, Mrs Sylvia
McGuire, Mrs Anne


Healey, John
McIsaac, Shona


Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)
McKenna, Mrs Rosemary


Henderson, Ivan (Harwich)
Mackinlay, Andrew


Hepburn, Stephen
McLeish, Henry


Heppell, John
McNulty, Tony


Hesford, Stephen
MacShane, Denis


Hill, Keith
Mactaggart, Fiona


Hinchliffe, David
McWilliam, John


Hodge, Ms Margaret
Mahon, Mrs Alice


Hoey, Kate
Mallaber, Judy


Home Robertson, John
Mandelson, Peter


Hoon, Geoffrey
Marsden, Gordon (Blackpool S)


Hope, Phil
Marsden, Paul (Shrewsbury)


Hopkins, Kelvin
Marshall, David (Shettleston)


Howarth, Alan (Newport E)
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)


Howarth, George (Knowsley N)
Marshall-Andrews, Robert


Howells, Dr Kim
Maxton, John


Hoyle, Lindsay
Meale, Alan


Hughes, Ms Beverley (Stretford)
Michael, Alun


Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)
Michie, Bill (Shefld Heeley)


Hughes, Simon (Southwark N)
Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)


Humble, Mrs Joan
Milburn, Alan






Miller, Andrew
Roche, Mrs Barbara


Mitchell, Austin
Rogers, Allan


Moffatt, Laura
Rooker, Jeff


Moonie, Dr Lewis
Rooney, Terry


Moore, Michael
Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)


Moran, Ms Margaret
Ross, William (E Lond'y)


Morgan, Alasdair (Galloway)
Rowlands, Ted


Morgan, Ms Julie (Cardiff N)
Roy, Frank


Morgan, Rhodri (Cardiff W)
Ruane, Chris


Morris, Ms Estelle (B'ham Yardley)
Ruddock, Ms Joan


Mowlam, Rt Hon Marjorie
Russell, Bob (Colchester)


Mudie, George
Russell, Ms Christine (Chester)


Mullin, Chris
Ryan, Ms Joan


Murphy, Denis (Wansbeck)
Sanders, Adrian


Murphy, Jim (Eastwood)
Savidge, Malcolm


Naysmith, Dr Doug
Sawford, Phil


Oaten, Mark
Sheerman, Barry


Olner, Bill
Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert


Organ, Mrs Diana
Shipley, Ms Debra


Osborne, Ms Sandra
Short, Rt Hon Clare


Palmer, Dr Nick
Simpson, Alan (Nottingham S)


Pearson, Ian
Skinner, Dennis


Pendry, Tom
Smith, Rt Hon Andrew (Oxford E)


Perham, Ms Linda
Smith, Angela (Basildon)


Pickthall, Colin
Smith, Rt Hon Chris (Islington S)


Pike, Peter L
Smith, Miss Geraldine (Morecambe & Lunesdale)


Plaskitt, James



Pollard, Kerry
Smith, John (Glamorgan)


Pond, Chris
Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)


Pope, Greg
Smith, Sir Robert (W Ab'd'ns)


Pound, Stephen
Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)


Powell, Sir Raymond
Snape, Peter


Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)
Soley, Clive


Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)
Southworth, Ms Helen


Prescott, Rt Hon John
Spellar, John


Primarolo, Dawn
Squire, Ms Rachel


Prosser, Gwyn
Starkey, Dr Phyllis


Purchase, Ken
Stewart, David (Inverness E)


Quin, Ms Joyce
Stewart, Ian (Eccles)


Quinn, Lawrie
Stinchcombe, Paul


Radice, Giles
Stoate, Dr Howard


Rammell, Bill
Strang, Rt Hon Dr Gavin


Rapson, Syd
Stringer, Graham


Reed, Andrew (Loughborough)
Stuart, Ms Gisela


Rendel, David
Stunell, Andrew


Robertson, Rt Hon George (Hamilton S)
Sutcliffe, Gerry



Swinney, John





Taylor, Rt Hon Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)
Watts, David



Webb, Steve


Taylor, Ms Dari (Stockton S)
Welsh, Andrew


Taylor, David (NW Leics)
White, Brian


Taylor, Matthew (Truro)
Wicks, Malcolm


Temple-Morris, Peter
Wigley, Rt Hon Dafydd


Thomas, Gareth (Clwyd W)
Williams Rt Hon Alan (Swansea W)


Thompson, William



Timms, Stephen
Williams, Alan W (E Carmarthen)


Tipping, Paddy
Williams, Mrs Betty (Conwy)


Todd, Mark
Willis, Phil


Tonge, Dr Jenny
Winnick, David


Touhig, Don
Winterton, Ms Rosie (Doncaster C)


Turner, Dennis (Wolverh'ton SE)
Wise, Audrey



Wood, Mike


Turner, Dr Desmond (Kemptown)
Woolas, Phil


Turner, Dr George (NW Norfolk)
Worthington, Tony


Twigg, Derek (Halton)
Wright, Anthony D (Gt Yarmouth)


Tyler, Paul
Wright, Dr Tony (Cannock)


Vis, Dr Rudi
Wyatt, Derek


Wallace, James



Walley, Ms Joan
Tellers for the Noes:


Ward, Ms Claire
Janet Anderson and


Wareing, Robert N
Mr. Jim Dowd.

Question accordingly negatived.

It being after Ten o'clock, THE CHAIRMAN left the Chair to report progress and ask leave to sit again.

To report progress and ask leave to sit again.—[Mr. Betts.]

Committee report progress; to sit again tomorrow.

EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS (DISPUTE RESOLUTION) BILL [LORDS] [MONEY]

Queen's recommendation having been signified—

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Employment Rights (Dispute Resolution) Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable out of money so provided under any other enactment.—[Mr. Betts.]

North Wales (Power Cuts)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Betts.]

Mr. Dafydd Wigley: I am grateful for such an early opportunity to draw attention to the problems that we experienced with electricity supply in northern and central Wales during the Christmas period. I realise that, at various times over the past weeks, many areas in the United Kingdom have suffered electricity cuts owing to extreme bad weather, but I think it appropriate to highlight the difficulties in northern and central Wales—served by MANWEB—for three reasons.
First, the storms that hit Wales over Christmas were more severe than those in many other areas and caused thousands of homes to be without electricity on Christmas day. Secondly, it took an unacceptably long time to reconnect supplies: hundreds of people had no electricity for several days, and some had none for as long as eight days. Thirdly, although this was not the first time our area had suffered in this way, the privatised electricity industry has imposed on us substantial cuts in the work force and we now face further centralisation and the closure of depots.
I must make it clear at once that I do not criticise the workers of MANWEB. Many of them worked heroically in appalling weather conditions for up to 18 hours a day, and many office staff gave up their Christmas to deal with telephone calls. I pay tribute to all those people, but, despite their efforts, the experience of my constituents was unacceptable. Lessons must be learnt and changes must be made.
I shall give some examples of the difficulties that have been experienced. The storm, with gusts of up to 100 mph, broke out late in the afternoon of Christmas eve. Incidentally, MANWEB states that the Meteorological Office gave it no advance warning. That raises other questions about the way in which the Met Office warning system works—with which we could, perhaps, deal on another occasion.
Thousands of homes in northern and central Wales lost their electricity supply. By midnight on Christmas eve, I was receiving frustrated telephone calls from constituents. I entirely understand why they felt as they did. The frustration came partly from the threat to their Christmas lunch, but equally, if not more so, from the difficulty that they were experiencing trying to make contact with MANWEB. MANWEB says that there were also difficulties with BT. If that is the case, some action needs to be taken on that matter.
The weather remained difficult. On Christmas day and Boxing day there were still strong winds, but they were not hurricane force and luckily it was not all that cold for the time of year; otherwise, the problems would have been much more serious. By Boxing day morning, people's electricity had been off for 36 hours and they were getting very annoyed indeed.
People could not get through to MANWEB and those who persevered for 35 or 40 minutes got only a recorded message. Some who held on beyond the end of the message had another long wait; sometimes they spoke to someone who knew little about the place names and locations in north Wales. That is not surprising, because many of the calls were diverted to Warrington.
As the week progressed, the complaints from households, farms and even residential old people's homes mounted. People had been without electricity for four or five days. By the time the full pattern became visible, we discovered that people had been without electricity for up to eight days. The Nierada family in Nefyn, for instance, had that experience, and they had an extremely sad bereavement in the middle of the week.
Whatever understandable difficulties MANWEB faced on Christmas day and Boxing day, there was no excuse for people being cut off for five days or longer or for the failure to provide information over the telephone. MANWEB even refused, I regret to say, to put spokespersons on BBC radio programmes to inform the public about the situation.
Police and other emergency services and local government also had difficulty establishing proper communications with MANWEB. The long loss of electricity supply led to substantial financial losses for many people as well as widespread misery over the festive period. Some, indeed, had their very survival threatened. One of my constituents, in Llanberis, had come out of hospital in Bangor only shortly before Christmas and was on an electrically powered life support machine. Her husband had an emergency MANWEB telephone number in case anything went wrong, but the person at the other end did not know how to respond or to help. My constituent survived by luck, because the electricity kept coming back for short periods and that was enough to keep the machinery going.

Mrs. Betty Williams: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the major problem during the crisis, in north-west Wales especially, was communication? He has mentioned some examples. Surely we must consider the question of bilingualism. People in our area were asked to spell out place names and even then the people on the other end got them wrong.

Mr. Wigley: Indeed. It is understandable that people on the other end did not understand the place names, as the calls were diverted to Warrington. That is a result of over-centralisation. When calls were dealt with locally, the problem did not arise. I know that people in Bethesda, in the hon. Lady's constituency, were also cut off for long periods.
A residential home with vulnerable old people, in Morfa Nefyn my constituency, was without electricity for three days, as was a nursing home in St. Asaph, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Mr. Ruane), with people of an average age of more than 90, several of whom are terminally ill and some of whom are dependent on electrical apparatus to survive. The staff there telephoned MANWEB and were unable to get the help that they needed. It was lucky that they were able to acquire a generator, as some people might otherwise have died.

Mr. Lindsay Hoyle: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. The hon. Gentleman must resume his seat. If he is seeking to intervene in the debate, he must get up and say so. Two hon. Members must not be standing at the same time.

Mr. Hoyle: I am sorry that I was so polite and I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The right


hon. Gentleman has brought to the attention of the House the problems suffered in the MANWEB area, but the same difficulties arose in the Norweb area. For example, a nursing home was without power for 50 hours and had no heating or lighting. The average age of the patients was 80 and one unfortunately had a stroke but had to be left in a chair because it was so cold that the staff had to keep all the patients together and could not put them to bed. Such tragic accidents should not be allowed to happen again and I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on bringing the issue before the House. Norweb is just as disgraceful as MANWEB.

Mr. Wigley: I accept that there were problems in other areas, including the Norweb area. The issue goes to the heart of the organisation of the electricity industry and some of the trends that we have seen since privatisation. The hon. Gentleman's reference to homes for the elderly underlines the question about what guidelines are issued to the electricity companies to ensure that they have procedures to deal with circumstances that may be a matter of life or death.
I have been inundated with letters on this issue. That fact reflects the feelings of my constituents. If the weather had been extremely cold, there would have been dozens of deaths. Thousands of families in Wales lost the entire contents of their deep freezes and much of their Christmas food, which they were not able to cook. Some have insurance policies, but they stand to lose the excess charge on those policies and now face increased insurance premiums. Some have no insurance cover.
Many dairy farms were badly hit, because milking machines could not be used. Farms that were storing milk could not keep it at the right temperature and it had to be thrown away. If cows cannot be milked for some time, they become barren and it can be up to three months before they can be milked again. The losses have been substantial, running to hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds. People who visited the area on holiday also had their holidays spoilt.
Three issues are at stake. First, what could or should have been done by MANWEB to reduce the risk of loss of supply? Secondly, how could communications have been improved and better information been made available? Thirdly, could supplies have been reconnected more quickly? I met the chairman of MANWEB, Mr. Charles Berry, and other senior staff to discuss the issues involved. My hon. Friend the Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) was also present. I appreciate MANWEB's difficulties and I am grateful for the courtesy that I was shown, but, in the end, we had to agree to differ. It is clear that the answer to avoiding such breakdowns is more investment in upgrading the system. In some areas where investment has been made, such as the village of Penisarwaen in my constituency, no losses of power were suffered, but communities within a mile of that village, such as Deiniolen, Dinorwig and Fachwen, had significant problems.

Mr. Elfyn Llwyd: I must declare an interest, because I had a cheese salad for Christmas lunch. More seriously, during the meeting that my right hon. Friend has mentioned, various offers of compensation were made by the hierarchy of MANWEB. Would it not be better if it had made some commitment to further investment and the creation of more jobs?

MANWEB has halved the number of people working in the industry in north Wales, so it is no wonder that such problems are recurring.

Mr. Wigley: My hon. Friend has identified the nub of the problem and I shall come to his point about the need for investment. MANWEB boasts that in the urban area of Liverpool, which is in its territory, it has one of the best records for maintaining supplies in the United Kingdom. I am glad about that for the sake of the good people of Liverpool, but when we pressed MANWEB on why, we were told that most of the connecting lines had been routed underground as a result of a substantial investment programme undertaken in previous decades. We want similar investment in northern and mid-Wales to put more connections underground—where practical—and to upgrade lines and transformers elsewhere.
We noted with surprise that MANWEB has, in the recent past, not used all the funds available to it for improving the network. We understand that MANWEB has held back capital expenditure on the distribution network to the extent of £53 million of the amount that it will be permitted to spend between 1995 and 2000. I have received a letter from the electricity consumers' committee for Merseyside and north Wales in which the committee chairman, Mr. David Owen, states:
The issue that has been of particular concern to the Committee is that of capital investment. You will see at page 19/20"—
of the report that he sent me—
that the Director General carried out a price review of the distribution network in 1995 and allowed a capital expenditure of £391.6 million over a five year period.
Manweb propose to spend £338.9 million, a saving of £53 million …
Furthermore as the process of regulation is incentive-based it means that Manweb can use these monies for other purposes—such as shareholder dividend".
That goes to the heart of the problem.
When we asked Mr. Berry what happens to the money, we were told that it is used to bring down charges for consumers generally. When he was pressed, he said that that was a commercial decision. It appears that, like other companies in the electricity sector, MANWEB is now profit driven. That is a problem which faces us when trying to get adequate investment.
I contend that the decision to use the £53 million in the other way was wrong. I believe that a commercial ethos has taken over from the concept of service and that we shall not have adequate investment to upgrade the network unless the electricity companies are severely penalised for not doing so. Similarly, there should be more planned maintenance of the network. As far as I can see, there is hardly any planned maintenance. Trees are pruned only once every five years and we are told that 50 per cent. of the losses in northern Wales were because of the interference of trees. A five-year cycle is simply far too long. There must be regular physical inspection of the lines, not just inspection from helicopters.
All this means having an adequate staff—and not all centralised, but out in areas such as north-west Wales. The MANWEB work force has been reduced from 4,400 in 1995 to 2,700 in 1997. There has also been centralisation, with the result that last month north Wales did not have enough technical staff who were familiar with the network, and workers had to be brought in from


England and Scotland. We are grateful that they came and for their help, but there were numerous stories of those people being lost, not knowing where they were supposed to go or not having details of the terrain. We must have a system to reverse the rundown of staff and an adequate number of depots.
To my amazement, I found that MANWEB plans to close local depots in north Wales. Apparently it plans to close the Pwllheli depot in my constituency and further staff reductions are planned—29 further persons will be lost to the electricity sector in north Wales this year. We asked the chairman for assurance that that would not happen and he refused to give it.
There should also be more staff to respond to customer telephone inquiries. Those people should be locally based and know the area; otherwise, the system breaks down and complaints made about the outages do not find their way back quickly and accurately to the field engineers who can put them right. There were numerous complaints about small transformers tripping out during the storms, but local staff were not told. When the information eventually got through, the fault could often be put right in 10 minutes—but people had had to wait for four or five days for that to happen. That is not acceptable.
I realise that MANWEB must operate within the confines of the regime set by the regulator. It said that, five years ago, the regulator refused to acknowledge the need for more money to improve the quality of supply. I understand that a formula used by the regulator still does not make adequate provision for the needs of quality improvements and that the regulator would not permit money to be used to put supply lines underground in rural areas. What is most disturbing is that I am told that the regulator wants to minimise investment by the electricity companies in general in order not to increase the net value of those companies in the marketplace.
Will the Minister arrange to meet the regulator? If those are the policies that emanate from Government guidelines to the regulator, will the Government please change the guidelines?
Were does all this lead us? It is clear that MANWEB could have invested more money in upgrading the network over time—unless it was blocked by the regulator. It could certainly spend more on employing more people locally. I believe that it decided not to do so because of commercial considerations—because it would reduce profits.
As MANWEB—and all the other electricity companies, for that matter—are driven by the profit motive, we have to use the only language they understand. They will improve the network and services only if they have to pay a substantial price, by way of penalty, for failing to do so. In other words, we need a compensation system that really hits the company if customers are not reconnected within a reasonable time. I suggest a rate of £10 for every hour beyond the first 24 hours.

Mr. Chris Ruane: I have written to Charles Berry, the chief executive of MANWEB, and asked for automatic compensation. The company knows who has been cut off and for how long; customers should be automatically compensated.

Mr. Wigley: I accept that entirely. The present compensation regime is inadequate. There is a loophole.

As things stand, there is no automatic compensation if there has been bad weather, but bad weather causes the problems, so the companies are let off the hook. To be fair, whereas MANWEB is refusing to recognise an obligation to pay compensation, it is offering some goodwill payments of £50 for those whose electricity was off for 24 hours or more. I hope that the payments will be larger than that, because some people have suffered far greater losses, and £50 is not adequate.
The whole formula needs to be re-examined. There needs to be a change in legislation to impose a statutory requirement to pay compensation and to remove the bad weather let-out. Only that will force the companies to give priority to maintaining supplies rather than profits. I understand that the electricity regulations of 1993 and 1995 are currently under review. I hope that the Minister will take into account the points that I have raised today. When will the review be concluded?
The questions for the Minister tonight are these: does he believe that a failure to re-establish supplies for four or five days is acceptable? Does he believe that there can be an adequate level of investment in upgrading the network under the present regulatory rules? If not, does he believe that that can be achieved within the current commercial framework of the industry or does that framework need changing? Will he undertake to discuss with the regulator the way in which the regulatory regime can be tightened? If necessary, will he amend legislation to provide a much stronger compensation regime to help customers? Will he set up an independent inquiry into what has happened?
Unless such action is taken, we will see in future the same disastrous failures that were experienced in northern and mid-Wales this Christmas. My constituents look to the Government to act and to act now.

The Minister for Science, Energy and Industry (Mr. John Battle): I have only a few minutes to reply to the debate. I know that other hon. Members would have liked to participate, including the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) and my hon. Friends the Members for Clwyd, West (Mr. Thomas), for Delyn (Mr. Hanson) and for Vale of Clwyd (Mr. Ruane).
I am tempted to respond positively to the direct questions asked by the right hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) at the end of his speech. The whole concern of our Government is to reinforce exactly those points: we are concerned that utility companies are putting profits and shareholders before service to their customers. Because we share those concerns, we have set in train a review of utility regulation. We feel that regulation is stacked in favour of the companies, and the current parameters of the regulator's role are to introduce competition, not to look after customers. We want to put consumers at the heart of regulation, which is the reason for the review. We want to redress the balance where it is wrong and go a long way to ensure that customers get a better service. I hope that the review will make its proposals in the coming weeks and, where we need to change the law, we will do it.
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising the matter publicly with me and in the House, so that people are well aware that what went on in a small corner


of the world on a wild, stormy and bleak winter night cannot be passed over—it is a matter of importance throughout the length and breadth of this land. I know that some people were without electricity for several days, which must be a matter of deep and serious concern to us all. We have to establish whether the performance of MANWEB and the other public electricity suppliers affected by the severe weather could have been better and can be improved.
I am also grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his words of tribute to the staff and engineers who went out to try, as best they could, to address the situation. We are looking at the structure of the operation, not the activities of those individuals and I am grateful for the way in which he couched his remarks.
I have already asked the Office of Electricity Regulation, Offer, which is responsible for the privatised electricity companies, to look into the events over Christmas and the new year not only to conduct a post-mortem, but to discover what action needs to be taken to ensure that we do not end up in a similar situation in the future. That includes considering what happened in the Norweb area, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) referred.
The regulator will look specifically at three issues. First, it will consider the steps that were taken by the public electricity suppliers to restore electricity supplies following the bad weather. Secondly, it will study their efforts to keep customers informed of when supplies were likely to be restored. Thirdly, and perhaps more generally, it will consider the ability of the distribution networks to withstand such weather conditions. That refers precisely to the question of investment. I hope that the regulator is not instructing people not to carry on investing. Investment in pipes, wires and the structure of the system is vital to ensuring that it improves.
I know that Offer has asked the companies to provide information about how quickly they were able to reconnect households and what resources were available to them to repair the damage to the network. The regulator has been asked to submit a report of those findings to my Department.
I am advised that the Meteorological Office had warned of winds of up to 35 mph, gusting to 55 mph. In the event, the winds were in excess of 100 mph between 6 pm and 11 pm, and the damage caused resulted in about 40,000 people losing their supply. That is no mean number. I know that hon. Members have had conversations with Mr. Charles Berry, the chief executive of MANWEB, about what happened that night, but some of the details bear retelling.
On Christmas day, the company had 500 people working out in the field. I should emphasise that it is the regulator's job to ensure that all licensed companies have the financial capacity to carry out their licensed activities. Offer will consider specifically whether MANWEB had sufficient resources to do its job. It would be interesting to know whether those 500 people were part of MANWEB' s own back-up and whether those back-up arrangements were sufficient. Should it have more in-house staff who know the area, as has been suggested in the debate? I know that a number of engineers were pulled in from Scottish Power, Scottish Hydro-Electric and East Midlands Electricity. They are damn good engineers—pardon my language—but they may not have

known the area and failed to get to people as quickly as possible. We must ensure that the regulator considers that problem as well.
I understand that, as a result of the efforts of the back-up team, the number of customers without electricity on Christmas day dropped from 40,000 to 11,500. In the next two days, MANWEB got that number down to 3,000, and then to 400. By 28 December, the number was down to 76. It must have been awful for those 76 to be without electricity over Christmas. I saw the reports on television, and I have every respect for the stoicism that some people displayed during that difficult time.
As for the lack of investment, in the five years from 1990–91 to 1994–95, I am advised that MANWEB invested £292 million in the electricity network. In the five-year period from 1995–96 to 2000 there are plans to invest a further £339 million—a 16 per cent. increase. To put it as politely as possible, I am always a little bit sceptical about forecasts and actual spend. As part of the regulator's duty during the next distribution price control review, Offer will be examining how that actual spend compares with the forecast spend. That is the key figure. Companies will be asked to explain any variance between the two. That information must be taken into account when considering provision for capital expenditure in that review. The nature of the planned investment should be incorporated in the structure of the review.
Under the guaranteed standards of performance set by the regulator, customers are entitled to claim a payment if the electricity supply is not restored within 24 hours of a fault being reported. The payment is £40 for domestic customers and £100 for non-domestic customers for the first 24 hours and a further £20 for every additional 12-hour period during which the supply remains off.
The regulations on the standard of performance exempt companies from making the payments in certain circumstances. That is the catch. They may claim, in common with insurance companies, that a problem was caused by an act of God, severe weather and so on. I understand, however, that MANWEB has confirmed that it will make some minimum, ex gratia good will payments to customers who were cut off for 24 hours over Christmas day and Boxing day. Those claims are being dealt with individually.
However, under the standards of performance set by the regulator, customers must ake a claim in writing if they were without a supply of electricity for more than 24 hours. If the company does not make a guaranteed standards payment because it is claiming an exemption, the customer can refer the matter to the regulator, who has the power to determine any dispute arising under the standards. The regulator must then decide whether it was reasonable for the company to claim an exemption. I hope that the report of the debate will be read by the regulator. The feeling of those who are in the Chamber is clear.
The Office of Electricity Regulation is reviewing the standards of performance and one issue being considered is whether customers should receive compensation automatically when their electricity supply is not restored within 24 hours, rather than the customer having to claim it within one month, and all the rest of it. We are pushing out that boat as far as we can.
Offer is also considering whether payments should be made according to the frequency of power cuts rather than the length of cuts. I think that that would be welcomed. We must push for that.
There is no doubt that overhead power lines are vulnerable to severe weather conditions such as high winds, snow and ice. As we all know, putting power lines underground in rural areas could be incredibly expensive. As for upgrading the line, I am tempted to agree. Why cannot we look for improvements? Most interruptions to supply are caused by incidents on the long radial 11 kV overhead systems, which go to the rural areas.
Other companies, dare I say, are already improving reliability without the expense of putting the wires underground. For example, a number of companies are

working on a new type of 11 kV overhead line that has insulated conductors. That has the advantage over bare conductors in reducing the number of interruptions caused by, for example, adverse weather conditions. There are technical questions to resolve, but it is not true that things cannot be done to upgrade the quality of the network.
I have mentioned utility review. We want competition where possible, but there must be regulation where necessary. I seem to recall Nigel Lawson, when he was on—

The motion having been made after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at fourteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.